George Clancy was an Irish nationalist politician and Mayor of Limerick. He was shot dead by the Auxiliary Police in 1921 during the Anglo-Irish conflict (1919–1922). The previous Mayor, Michael O'Callaghan, was murdered on the same night by the same group.

Clancy was born at Grange, County Limerick. He was educated at Crescent College

Crescent College

Crescent College Comprehensive SJ is a secondary school located on a section of 40 acres of parkland at Dooradoyle, Limerick, Ireland. The college is one of a number of Jesuit schools in Ireland.- History :...

, Limerick, and thereafter at the Catholic University in St Stephen's Green, now University College, Dublin. Among his friends at the university were James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington

Francis Skeffington from Bailieborough, County Cavan, was an Irish suffragist, pacifist and writer. He was a friend and schoolmate of James Joyce, Oliver St John Gogarty, Tom Kettle, and Conor Cruise O'Brien's father, Frank O'Brien...

 and Tom Kettle. He helped form a branch of the Gaelic League at college and persuaded his friends, including Joyce, to take lessons in Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

. He played hurling and was a good friend of Michael Cusack

Michael Cusack

Michael Cusack was an Irish teacher and founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association.-His Life:...

. With Arthur Griffin he joined the Celtic Literary Society.

He graduated in 1904 and found a teaching position at Clongowes Wood College

Clongowes Wood College

Clongowes Wood College is a voluntary secondary boarding school for boys, located near Clane in County Kildare, Ireland. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1814, it is one of Ireland's oldest Catholic schools, and featured prominently in James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the...

. Due to ill health he had to return to his home at Grange. In 1908 he came to Limerick City to teach Irish. In 1913 he joined the Irish Volunteers

Irish Volunteers

The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...

. In 1915 he married Máire Killeen, a teacher. After the 1916 Rising he was arrested and imprisoned in Cork, but after a hunger strike was released before he came to trial.

He was elected Mayor of Limerick in 1921. On the night of the 6 March three Auxiliaries came to his house and one of them shot him, injuring him fatally. His wife was injured in the attack.

He features as the character, Michael Davin, in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.