Alex Maskey (born 8 January 1952) is an Irish politician who has been Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly since 2020 and was the first member of Sinn Féin to serve as Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2002 to 2003. He was Sinn Féin's longest sitting councillor, representing the Laganbank electoral area of Belfast. He was also an MLA for Belfast West for two periods, and also for Belfast South. Early life Maskey was educated at St Malachy's College and at the Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education and then worked in Belfast docks as a labourer and barman. He was a successful amateur boxer, having only lost 4 out of 75 fights. After the Troubles began in the late 1960s he became involved with the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and was interned twice in the 1970s. Political career Maskey stood unsuccessfully in West Belfast in the 1982 Assembly Election. In June 1983, Maskey won a by-election and became the first member of Sinn Féin to be elected to Belfast City Council since the 1920s. He was greeted with boos and jeers when he entered the chamber for his first council meeting, and unionist councillors started stamping their feet and screaming when he attempted to deliver his maiden speech in Irish. Maskey emerged as a key ally of Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams' approach to the strategy. In 1987 he survived being shot at close range by loyalist paramilitaries. He was targeted again by loyalists in 1988, and also a gun attack at his home in 1993 when one of his friends, Alan Lundy, was killed. In 1996 Maskey was elected to the Northern Ireland Peace Forum for the Belfast West constituency but did not attend the Forum in accordance with Sinn Féin's policy of abstentionism. Two years later he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which on this occasion Sinn Féin did not boycott. Maskey's growing political profile led him to contest the Belfast South constituency in the 2001 general election as part of Sinn Féin's strategy of building up their vote in one of their weaker constituencies. In the local elections held on the same day he switched to the Laganbank area of South Belfast and won a seat there. In 2002 Maskey became the first ever republican to serve as Lord Mayor of Belfast. His first duty in office was to open the annual Presbyterian