Anthony Coughlan

Who is Anthony Coughlan?

Anthony Coughlan is a left-wing academic, Secretary of the The National Platform for EU Research and Information Centre and retired Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Social Policy at Trinity College, Dublin.

He has contributed to various debates in the media such as on RTÉ's Questions and Answers, both in his capacity as a lecturer and as a spokesperson for lobby groups such as the National Platform. He opposed EU enlargement and EU treaties such as the Single European Act, Maastricht Treaty, Amsterdam Treaty, Nice Treaty, Nice Treaty re-run and the Lisbon Treaty.

Recently he has been making contributions to the post-Lisbon Treaty debate and made submissions to the Oireachtas committee on Europe on behalf of the National Platform.

Born in Cork, he became politicised while studying English, history and economics at University College Cork in the fifties, setting up a branch of the Labour Party in the college. He moved to London where he studied for a postgraduate degree in Social Policy at the University of London. In London he joined the Connolly Association, and would have befriended the republican socialist C. Desmond Greaves.