Lenihan, Patrick

Patrick Lenihan, 1903-1981, was born in Kanturk, Ireland, where he was active in the Sinn Fein movement, which opposed British rule. He moved to the USA in 1923 and to Calgary in 1930. He joined the Communist Party and spent the 1930s organizing workers, farmers and the unemployed throughout the province. In 1933 he married Anne Belkin, 1910-1994, who was born in Russia. They had three children, Dennis, William and June. Patrick was elected as a Calgary alderman in 1938, as a Communist. From 1940 to 1942 he was interned for opposing Second World War. He became a labourer for the City of Calgary after the war, and by 1949 was president of the Civic Employees Union. In 1945 he was instrumental in the formation of the National Union of Public Employees, a predecessor to the Canadian Union of Public Employees. He was the western Canadian director of CUPE when he retired in 1968. For further information see Gilbert Levine's article, "Patrick Lenihan and the Alberta Miners", in Labour. - no. 16 (Fall, 1985); and Patrick Lenihan : From Irish Rebel to Founder of Canadian Public Sector Unionism / edited by Gilbert Levine, with an introduction by Lorne Brown. -- St. Johns : Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1998.