Michael Staines was an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 republican

Irish Republicanism

Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

 and politician. He was born in Newport

Newport, County Mayo

Newport, historically known as Ballyveaghan , is a small picturesque town in the Barony of Burrishoole County Mayo, Ireland with a population of 590 in 2006. It is located on the west coast of Ireland, along the shore of Clew Bay, north of Westport. The N59 road passes through the town. The...

, County Mayo

County Mayo

County Mayo is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the village of Mayo, which is now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county is 130,552...

 his mother Margaret's home village, and where his father Edward was serving as an RIC

Royal Irish Constabulary

The armed Royal Irish Constabulary was Ireland's major police force for most of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police controlled the capital, and the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police...

 officer.

Staines was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood

Irish Republican Brotherhood

The Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland during the second half of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century...

 from 1902 and on its Supreme Council from 1921 to 1922. Staines took part in the 1916 Easter Rising

Easter Rising

The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...

 and served as Quartermaster General in the GPO

General Post Office (Dublin)

The General Post Office ' in Dublin is the headquarters of the Irish postal service, An Post, and Dublin's principal post office...

 and was later interned at the Frongoch internment camp

Frongoch internment camp

Frongoch internment camp at Frongoch in Merionethshire, Wales was a makeshift place of imprisonment during the First World War. Until 1916 it housed German prisoners of war in an abandoned distillery and crude huts, but in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland, the German prisoners...

. On his release from internment in Frongoch, he collaborated with Éamon de Valera

Éamon de Valera

Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...

, James Ryan, Eamon Duggan and others in founding the New Ireland Assurance Collecting Society, in furtherance of the Sinn Féin policy of investment of national resources at home in Ireland (1918). He was elected Director for supply for Sinn Féin on 27 October 1917. He was also elected as a Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...

 MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for the Dublin St. Michan's

Dublin St Michan's (UK Parliament constituency)

St Michan's, a division of Dublin, was a UK parliamentary constituency in Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament to the British House of Commons 1918–1922....

 constituency in the 1918 general election

Irish (UK) general election, 1918

The Irish general election of 1918 was that part of the 1918 United Kingdom general election that took place in Ireland. It is seen as a key moment in modern Irish history...

. He attended Dáil Éireann

Dáil Éireann

Dáil Éireann is the lower house, but principal chamber, of the Oireachtas , which also includes the President of Ireland and Seanad Éireann . It is directly elected at least once in every five years under the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote...

, working closely with the legal side of Government, as well as becoming a Dublin alderman

Alderman

An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...

. He was re-elected in 1921 and 1922 for the Dublin North West

Dublin North West (Dáil Éireann constituency)

Dublin North–West is a parliamentary constituency represented in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish parliament or Oireachtas. The constituency elects 3 deputies...

 constituency. He later served in the Free State Seanad

Seanad Éireann (Irish Free State)

Seanad Éireann was the upper house of the Oireachtas of the Irish Free State from 1922–1936. It has also been known simply as the Senate, or as the First Seanad. The Senate was established under the 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State but a number of constitutional amendments were...

.

He was on the Grangegorman Mental Hospital

St. Brendan's Hospital (Grangegorman)

St. Brendan's Hospital is a psychiatric facility located in the north Dublin suburb of Grangegorman. It forms part of the HSE mental health services of Dublin North East. Its catchment area is North West Dublin...

 Board. He is best remembered as the first commissioner of the Garda Síochána

Garda Síochána

, more commonly referred to as the Gardaí , is the police force of Ireland. The service is headed by the Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Government. Its headquarters are located in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.- Terminology :...

. The Staines family continue to be a prominent legal family.

Quote: "The Garda Síochána will succeed not by force of arms or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people"