Career
He was the vice chairman of Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in the 1960s, and later a representative of the Green Party and the Irish Labour Party. Born in Newry, County Down, MacDowell was interned for Ireland Republican Army membership in the 1940s. MacDowell advocated the Irish Labour Party re-organising in Northern Ireland, and supported the party in elections in the late 1940s and early 1950s in Belfast.
He was elected as a Green Party councilor in Dun Laoghaire in 1999, after previously standing as an Independent and Labour party member, he also stood unsuccessfully for the Green Party in the 1996 Forum elections in Newry and Armagh.
MacDowell left the Green Party over the dispute regarding the nomination of Ciarán Cuffe as the candidate in the Dáil election, initially joining the Labour Party but ran as an independent in the 2002 general election. He is the father of former Green Member of the European Parliament for Leinster Nuala Ahern (née MacDowell). he died aged 78 on the 31st of August 2003.
