The party's director of elections in 2016, Matt Carthy was the only one of Sinn Féin's three MEPs to hold his Midlands-North West seat last year and is a member of the parliament's committee on agriculture and rural development.
Born in Birmingham, the 42-year-old married father of five has lived in Carrickmacross in Co Monaghan since he was 11 and now takes over the retiring TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin’s strong party machine.
He studied marketing for a year at the Dublin Institute of Technology, where he established a Sinn Féin college branch or cumann.
A founding member of the party’s youth organisation Ógra Shinn Féin, he has been a youth organiser and a press officer for the party and since 1998 has regularly been a member of the party’s ard chomhairle or national executive.
A dynamic party organiser he is an effective spokesman who can be combative in media interviews. He can be expected to hold a high-profile portfolio as either an opposition spokesman or in government.
