Maurice E. Dockrell


Maurice Edward Dockrell was an Irish Fine Gael politician who was elected to Dáil Éireann at ten successive general elections, serving as a Teachta Dála for thirty-four years.
A company director, he was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD for the Dublin South constituency at the 1943 general election, and re-elected at the 1944 general election.
After constituency boundaries were redrawn in 1947, Dockrell was returned at the 1948 general election for the Dublin South-Central constituency, which re-elected him on five further elections. He was then elected twice as a TD for Dublin Central, at the 1969 and 1973 general elections. He lost his seat in the Fianna Fáil landslide at the 1977 general election.
From 1960 to 1961, he was the Lord Mayor of Dublin.
His father, Henry Morgan Dockrell, and his brother, H. Percy Dockrell were also Fine Gael TDs. His grandfather, Sir Maurice Dockrell, had been a Unionist MP before independence.
His son Henry Morgan Dockrell was elected to Dublin City Council in 1967. His grandson Maurice Dockrell was co-opted onto Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council in 2020, making him the fifth generation of the family to serve either in the Oireachtas or at local level.
During a 1975 debate on reform of the country's conservative laws against contraceptives, he is alleged to have said "I'm for it, but I'm past it"