Anthony, Richard Sydney (1875–1962), trade unionist and politician, was born 20 October 1875 in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, son of John Anthony, printer, and Mary Anthony (née Clancy or Clooney). Little is known about his early life or education except that the family moved to Cork when he was seven. In his teens he joined the printing staff of the Cork Examiner, where in time he became a linotype operator. A member of the Cork Typographical Association (president from the 1920s), he became a leading figure in the Cork Workers’ Council. In the 1920s he was a member of the national executive of the Labour party and in 1924 a member of the executive council of the Irish TUC. Elected a Labour TD for Cork city (June 1927), he was a regular contributor to dáil debates and a strong advocate of draconian public-order legislation: he was expelled from the Labour party for his support of the military tribunal bill (1931). Well known for his anti-socialist views, he told the forty-fifth ITUC (August 1939) that he would prefer fascism to a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Earlier the same year he proposed a motion at a meeting of Cork city corporation, congratulating Gen. Franco on concluding his war against communism and anarchy in Spain (25 April 1939). He continued to sit in the dáil as an independent Labour TD (1927–38, 1943–8) only rejoining the Labour party before the 1948 general election, in which he was unsuccessful. He later served as a senator (1948–51, 1954–7). An alderman of Cork corporation for over thirty years (to 1960), he was lord mayor 1942–3. A keen fisherman and game hunter, he was an executive member of the Munster Game Protection Society and Restocking Association and of the Cork Anglers Association. He died 3 January 1962 in Cork.
Anthony lived at St Anthony's Villas, Pouladuff Rd, Cork, and 5 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Cork. He married three times; he and his first wife (née Powell from Cork) had seven children.