Business career

In 1997, Ó Muilleoir became part-owner of the Andersonstown News, which subsequently purchased the New York-based Irish Echo.^[4] A fluent Irish speaker,^[2] he has interests in other Irish and American businesses.^[4] He served as a temporary director of Northern Ireland Water.^[5]

Political career

Ó Muilleoir entered politics in 1985, when he stood as a Sinn Féin candidate for the Upper Falls area and narrowly missed out on being elected.^[6]

When Pip Glendinning of the Alliance Party resigned her seat two years later due to the birth of the Glendinning's daughter, Ó Muilleoir won the resulting by-election in October 1987. During his time on the council, he initiated a number of legal actions over what he claimed was discrimination by the Unionist-dominated council,^[4] detailing these experiences in his book, The Dome of Delight.^[2]

He was re-elected at the 1989 and 1993 local elections, retiring at the 1997 local elections to concentrate on his business interests.^[2] In 1996 he was an unsuccessful candidate in the Northern Ireland Forum election in North Down.^[7]

He re-entered politics in 2011, when he was elected as a Belfast City Councillor for Balmoral, South Belfast, gaining the seat previously held by Jim Kirkpatrick of the Democratic Unionist Party, and was elected Lord Mayor in 2013, serving a one-year term.^[8]

In 2014, he was co-opted as an MLA into the Northern Ireland Assembly.^[9] He stood in Belfast South in the 2015 United Kingdom general election, losing to the Social Democratic and Labour Party incumbent, Alasdair McDonnell.^[10] On 12 May 2016, he was appointed Minister of Finance in the Northern Ireland Executive.^[11] He resigned as an MLA in December 2019,^[12] and Deirdre Hargey was co-opted in his place.^[13]