Patrick Gaffney (politician)

Patrick "Paddy" Gaffney (died 1943) was a left-wing Irish politician. A flour miller from County Carlow, he was returned for the Labour Party in Carlow–Kilkenny at the 1922 general election. He left Labour to join the Communist Party of Ireland in protest over the Constitution of the Irish Free State's requiring the Oath of Allegiance for all legislators. He participated in the Third Dáil when it met as a "Provisional Parliament and Constitutent Assembly" in September 1922, but withdrew when it became the Free State Dáil in December as the Constitution came into force and the Oath was required. He stood as a "Republican Labour" candidate in the 1923 general election but was defeated.