Researching Arthur Morgan

Morgan was born in Omeath in County Louth. Educated locally, he joined the small family fish-processing company, where he became a director. He is a founding member of Cooley Environmental and Health Action Committee which campaigns against Sellafield nuclear power station.

Morgan is a former Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoner. He was sentenced to 14 years in jail after being arrested on a boat on Carlingford Lough during an operation in 1977. He served seven and a half years at Long Kesh prison, where he participated in the blanket protest, before being released in 1984.

He was an unsuccessful Dáil candidate at the 1987 and 1989 general elections. At the 1999 European Parliament election Morgan polled over 20,000 votes in the Leinster constituency but failed to be elected. He was elected to Louth County Council on the same day for the Dundalk/Carlingford area. At the 2002 general election he was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin TD and retained his seat at the 2007 general election.

In a Dáil debate on the budget on 6 March 2008, Morgan launched a strong attack on the government's economic policy, saying that "There is more social conscience in a cat's arse than there is in the entire Fianna Fáil parliamentary party." Condemning a Government proposal to give tax breaks for the development of private hospices, he asked "Why would I expect any different from a Tánaiste and a Government over this partial Parliament in this little semi-statelet over which he is presiding?". Deputy Michael Finneran responded by saying that "if it was not for him and his fellow travellers we would have had considerably more money to invest in many projects over the years instead of needing to spend it on security to protect the State."

On 9 November 2010, he announced that he would not be contesting the 2011 general election.

Morgan was born at Warwick, son of Premier of Queensland Sir Arthur Morgan and grandson of Queensland colonial MP James Morgan. He received a state school education at Warwick and was attached to the staff of the state Hansard and the state parliament for several years until 1904 before going to work for his family's newspaper, the Warwick Argus, as an apprentice journalist and then a sub-editor from 1910 to 1914, after which his family sold the newspaper. He served a term as a Town of Warwick councillor and was an unsuccessful Kidstonite candidate for the Legislative Assembly in 1908.

Morgan enlisted for service in World War I on 7 February 1915 and embarked with the 11th Light Horse Regiment reinforcements on 2 June 1915. He served in the Gallipoli campaign and in Palestine before being invalided home in early 1917. After the war, he returned to journalism, initially as associate editor of the Daily Mail in Brisbane from 1918 to 1921, then as editor of the new Graziers' Review from 1921 to 1927, and finally as editor of the Brisbane Sun from 1927 until his election to parliament.

In 1929, Morgan was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the Nationalist member for Darling Downs, defeating sitting member Littleton Groom, who was running as an independent. He was a member of the Select Committee on the Tobacco Industry from 1923 to 1930. He held the seat until his defeat by Groom, again running as an independent, in 1931.

He was touted as a potential candidate for seats in the early-to-mid-1930s, but this did nor occur. Morgan died in 1957.

He married Anna Hobbs in 1907; they had two sons and two daughters.