Conor Cruise O'Brien

Conor Cruise O'Brien (born 1917) is an Irish politician, writer and academic.

Related Topics:
1917 - Irish

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Conor Cruise O'Brien was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1917 to nominally Catholic parents. His father in made his wife promise to send Conor to the Protestant Sandford Park High School, despite the inevitable objections of the local Catholic clergy. His mother had three sisters, all of whom lost their husbands in the watershed year of 1916. One of his aunts, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, lost her husband Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, a pacifist caught up in the violence of the Easter Rising, when he was killed on the orders of a psychotic British army officer, Colonel Bowen-Colthurst (who was looking for "Fenians"). Bowen-Colthurst was sent temporarily to a Canadian hospital after being adjudged insane in the aftermath of the Rising, but he was released with a pension to settle in Canada.

Related Topics:
Dublin, Ireland - 1917 - Catholic - Protestant - Sandford Park High School - 1916 - Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington - Francis Sheehy-Skeffington - Pacifist - Easter Rising - British army - Colonel Bowen-Colthurst - Fenians - Canadian

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Conor was educated at Sandford Park School and Trinity College Dublin, neither of which was Catholic or nationalist in ethos. This made O'Brien something of an anomaly in post-1922 Irish politics, particularly in Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil (which best translates as "Soldiers of Destiny") party. His college education led to a series of appointments in the public service, most notably in the Department of External Affairs, where he served as a diplomat under the pro-physical force republican Seán MacBride, the Nobel Peace Laureate of 1974. McBride was the son of John McBride, a Boer supporter who was executed in 1916 for his somewhat nominal involvement in the Easter Rising, and of Maud Gonne, a nationalist, who had been a love interest of William Butler Yeats and who eventually converted to Roman Catholicism. O'Brien was particularly vocal on the anti-partition issue during the 1940s and came to world prominence as a special representative to Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations, when, in 1961, Katanga tried to secede from what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Under pressure from a range of international interests, he eventually resigned and wrote 'To Katanga and Back' (1962) which is still considered a classic of both modern African history and the inner workings of the United Nations. From 1962 to 1965 he was Chancellor of the University of Ghana. Following this he was the first Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at New York University until 1969.

Related Topics:
Sandford Park School - Trinity College Dublin - Nationalist - Éamon de Valera - Fianna Fáil - Republican - Seán MacBride - Nobel Peace - John McBride - Boer - Easter Rising - Maud Gonne - William Butler Yeats - Roman Catholicism - Partition - 1940 - Dag Hammarskjöld - Secretary General of the United Nations - Katanga - Democratic Republic of the Congo - African history - United Nations - 1962 - 1965 - University of Ghana - Albert Schweitzer - New York University - 1969

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Cruise O'Brien returned to Ireland and was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party candidate. In 1973 he was appointed Minister for Posts & Telegraphs. During this period he developed a hostility to militant Irish republicanism. His views caused controversy within and outside the government. In 1977 Cruise O'Brien lost his Dáil seat, however he was elected to Seanad Éireann. The following year (1978) he became editor of The Observer newspaper. He held visiting professorships and lectureships throughout the world, particularly in the United States. He coined the acronym GUBU on foot of a statement by Charles Haughey. Up until 1994 he was pro-vice chancellor of the University of Dublin. In 1996 he joined the United Kingdom Unionist Party and secured a seat in the elections of May 1996 and was a member of that party's delegation to the peace process talks, during which he praised the approach of Ian Paisley. He was forced to resign from the party in 1998 after writing an article encouraging unionists to embrace the idea of a United Ireland to thwart Sinn Féin.

Related Topics:
Dáil Éireann - Labour Party - 1973 - Irish republicanism - Government - 1977 - Dáil - Seanad Éireann - 1978 - The Observer - United States - GUBU - Charles Haughey - 1994 - University of Dublin - 1996 - United Kingdom Unionist Party - Ian Paisley - 1998 - Unionists - United Ireland - Sinn Féin

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Conor Cruise O'Brien's many books include The Great Melody (1992), his magisterial biography of Edmund Burke (a figure with whom he feels a great personal affinity, as Burke is apparently one of his ancestors), and his "Memoir: My Life and Themes" (1998). He is now married to his second wife, the Irish-language writer and poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi, five years his junior, who was the daughter of the former Fianna Fáil TD and Tánaiste, Seán MacEntee; they have a son and a daughter, both adopted.

Related Topics:
Edmund Burke - Irish-language - Máire Mhac an tSaoi - Fianna Fáil - TD - Tánaiste - Seán MacEntee

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