Conor Cruise O'Brien

Conor Cruise O'Brien (3 November 1917 – 18 December 2008) was an Irish politician, writer and academic. Althogh his opinion on the role of Britian in Nothern Ireland changed over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, he continued throughout his life to acknowlege values of, as he saw, two irreconcilable traditions. He retained a radical outlook, yet his career took a left to right wing path over the course of his life; he was strongly intersted in the progress of South Africa, and in later years took a pro-Israel stance. He summarised his position as "I intend to administer a shock to the Irish psyche".

O'Brien began his career as an early champion for the rights of Protestants in Northern Ireland. In 1961, as a vice chancellor of the University of Ghana, he was arrested as an anti-war demonstrator in that country. When The Troubles began in Ireland in the early 1970s, his initial position gave way to an effort to bring Sinn Fein into mainstream discussions.

In 1969, O'Brien won a seat at Ireland’s Parliament as a left-wing representive of Dublin Northeast. He was later known primarily as a journalist and leading public left-wing intellectual.

Biography

Early life

O'Brien was born in Dublin to Francis ("Frank") Cruise O'Brien and Kathleen Sheehy. Frank, a journalist with the Freeman's Journal and Irish Independent newspapers, had also edited an essay written fifty years earlier by William Lecky, on the influence of the clergy on Irish politics. Kathleen was an Irish language teacher and daughter of David Sheehy, a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party and organizer of the Irish National Land League. She had three sisters, all of whom lost their husbands in 1916. These included Hanna, wife of murdered pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, and Mary, wife of Thomas Kettle, an officer of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who died during the Battle of the Somme.

O'Brien's father (who died in 1927) requested his wife have his son educated in a non-denominational school. O'Brien was sent to Sandford Park School, despite the objections of the Catholic clergy. O'Brien subsequently attended Trinity College Dublin which, like Sandford Park, was neither Catholic nor nationalist in ethos. O'Brien was editor of Trinity's weekly, TCD: A College Miscellany. His first wife was Christine Foster, who came from a Belfast Presbyterian family. They were married in a registry office in 1939, which was contrary to Catholic teachings. O'Brien had three children with Christine Foster — Donal, Fedelma, and Kathleen (Kate), who died in 1998. The marriage ended in divorce after 20 years. In 1962, he married the Irish-language writer and poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi. She was five years his junior, and the daughter of former TD and Tánaiste, Seán MacEntee. They adopted a son (Patrick) and a daughter (Margaret).

O'Brien's university education led to a series of appointments in the public service, most notably in the Department of External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs). He became something of an anomalous iconoclast in post-1922 Irish politics, particularly in the context of government by Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil party. He considered that those who did not conform to traditional Catholic mores were generally not preferred in the public service appointment process of the time. In the Department of External Affairs, O'Brien served as a diplomat under the pro-physical force republican, Seán MacBride, the Nobel Peace Laureate of 1974. MacBride was the son of John MacBride and Maud Gonne. O'Brien was particularly vocal on the anti-partition issue during the 1940s.

International postings

O'Brien came to 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. See the Congo Crisis. 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.

Irish politics

O'Brien returned to Ireland and in the 1969 general election was elected to Dáil Éireann as a member of the Labour Party, representing the Dublin North East constituency together with three other TDs, including Charles Haughey. He was appointed a member of the short-lived first delegation from the Oireachtas to the European Parliament. Following the 1973 general election, O'Brien was appointed Minister for Posts & Telegraphs in the coalition Cosgrave government. During this period he developed a deep hostility to militant Irish republicanism. He extended and vigorously enforced censorship of the media, banning members of Sinn Féin and the Provisional Irish Republican Army from being interviewed on Irish radio or television (Section 31). At the same time, he attempted to get Britain's BBC 1 television channel broadcast on Ireland's proposed second television channel.

O'Brien's attitude towards Garda brutality in this period has been remarked upon. In his book, he recalls a conversation with a detective who told him how the Gardaí had found out – from a suspect – the location of businessman Tiede Herrema, who had been kidnapped by the IRA in October 1975: "[T]he escort started asking him questions and when at first he refused to answer, they beat the shit out of him. Then he told them where Herrema was." O'Brien explained, "I refrained from telling this story to Garret [FitzGerald] or Justin [Keating], because I thought it would worry them. It didn’t worry me." The elements of the Garda Síochána that engaged in beating suspects later became known as the "Heavy Gang".

His stance caused controversy within and outside the government. His Dublin North East constituency was abolished in the 1970s and in the 1977 general election he stood in Dublin Clontarf. He was, however, subsequently elected to Seanad Éireann (1977 to 1979).

Polemics and academia

Between 1979 and 1981 O'Brien was editor-in-chief of The Observer newspaper in Britain. He held visiting professorships and lectureships throughout the world, particularly in the United States, and controversially in apartheid South Africa. A persistent critic of Charles Haughey, O'Brien coined the acronym GUBU (Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre and Unprecedented), based on a statement by Charles Haughey, who was then Taoiseach, commenting on the discovery of a murder suspect in the apartment of the Fianna Fáil Attorney General Patrick Connolly. Haughey's short lived government from March to December 1982 became known as the GUBU period. Until 1994, O'Brien was Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin.

Unionism

In 1996, he joined Robert McCartney's United Kingdom Unionist Party and was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum. He was involved in the talks process that ultimately led to the Good Friday Agreement until the party withdrew on the installation of Sinn Fein. He later resigned from UKUP after publishing an extract from his book Memoir: My Life and Themes in which he called on Unionists to consider the benefits of a united Ireland to thwart Sinn Féin. In 2005 he rejoined the Labour Party.

Writings

Conor Cruise O'Brien's many books include: his picture of the politics of polarisation States of Ireland (1972), The Great Melody (1992), his unorthodox biography of Edmund Burke and his Memoir: My Life and Themes (1998). He also published a collection of essays, Cunning and Passion (1986), which includes a substantial piece on the literary work of William Butler Yeats and some challenging views on the subject of terrorism. Perhaps his most controversial work is The Siege (1989), a sympathetic history of Zionism and the State of Israel. His books, particularly those on Irish issues, tend to be very involved and personal such as States of Ireland where he made the link between the political success of the republican Easter Rising and the consequent demise of his Home Rule family's position in society. His private papers have been deposited in the University College Dublin Archives.

He was a long time columnist for the Sunday Independent and his articles have been distinguished by hostility to the peace process in Northern Ireland, regular predictions of civil war in the Republic of Ireland and an openly pro-Unionist stance. In 1997, a libel action was brought against him by relatives of Bloody Sunday victims for alleging in one article that the marchers were "Sinn Féin activists operating for the IRA". In 1963, O'Brien's script for a Telefís Éireann programme on Charles Stewart Parnell won him a Jacob's Award.

Works

• Maria Cross (as Donat O'Donnell) (1954)
• To Katanga and Back (1962)
• Albert Camus (Penguin, 1970) ISBN 9780670019021
• States of Ireland (1972) ISBN 978-0091131005
• The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism (1986) ISBN 978-0671633103
• Passion & Cunning: Essays on Nationalism, Terrorism, and Revolution (1988)
• The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke (1992). ISBN 0-226-61651-7
• On the Eve of the Millennium (1994). ISBN 978-0887845598
• The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 (1996) ISBN 978-0712666831
• Memoir: My Life and Themes (1999) ISBN 978-1853719479
• God land : reflections on religion and nationalism (1988) ISBN 0674355105

Máire and Conor Cruise O'Brien:

• A Concise History of Ireland Thames and Hudson, London ISBN 0-500-45011-0 (1972). Reissued in paperback.

External links

• Obituary, NY Times issue Dec. 19, 2008
• ElectionsIreland.org - Profile
• Oireachtas Members Database - Profile
• Template:Worldcat id

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