Rosie McCorley

Rosie McCorley
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Belfast West
In office 2 July 2012 – May 2016
Preceded by	Paul Maskey
Succeeded by	Gerry Carroll
Personal details
Born	(1957-01-14) 14 January 1957 [1] Belfast
Nationality	Irish
Political party	Sinn Féin
Alma mater	Open University University of Ulster Queen's University Belfast
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Rosaleen "Rosie" McCorley (born 14 January 1957) is an Irish Sinn Féin politician who was selected by her party as a member (MLA) of the Northern Ireland Assembly to represent the Belfast West constituency in June 2012.^[2]

She replaced her party colleague Paul Maskey, an abstentionist MP in the parliament of the United Kingdom, who had resigned from the Northern Ireland Assembly as part of Sinn Féin's policy of abolishing double jobbing. She lost her seat at the 2016 Assembly election.^[3]

A former housing officer, in 1991, McCorley was jailed for 66 years for the attempted murder of an army officer and possession of explosives.^[4] While in prison she obtained a first-class honours degree in social sciences with the Open University. She holds a diploma in Irish from the University of Ulster and a post-graduate diploma in Gaeilge agus Léann an Aistriúcháin from Queen's University Belfast.^[2]

She served eight years of her sentence before being released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in November 1999. She was the first female prisoner to be released following the agreement.^[4] After her release, she worked for Coiste na nIarchimí, an Irish republican ex-prisoners’ group, for eight years, before taking up a post as political adviser with Sinn Féin in 2007 working with MLAs Fra McCann and Pat Sheehan.^[5]

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