Stephen M. O'Mara

For his father, see Stephen O'Mara (senator).

Stephen Mary O'Mara (5 January 1884?[fn 1] – 11 November 1959[1][2]) was a businessman and Irish republican politician in Limerick.

O'Mara was the third son of Stephen O'Mara, Snr, a former Mayor of Limerick and briefly an Irish Parliamentary Party MP.[1] Stephen Jr. married Nancy O'Brien and had a son, Peter.[3] His elder brother James was an early supporter of Sinn Féin, which Stephen also joined after the Easter Rising.[1] He was a member of Limerick Corporation when the Irish War of Independence began.[1] The Mayor of Limerick, Seoirse Clancy, was killed by the Black and Tans on 7 March 1921, and O'Mara was elected in his place on 22 March.[1][4] In May, he went to the United States to replace his brother James as "fiscal agent" raising funds for the Irish Republic.[1][4][5] He was re-elected mayor in January 1922, and opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty.[1] The fact that Dáil Éireann funds in the US were in O'Mara's name as trustee caused legal difficulties for the pro-Treaty administration.[1][6][7]

In March 1922, there was a stand-off in Limerick city between pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty units of the Irish Republican Army during the transfer of bases by the withdrawing British Army.[1][4] O'Mara negotiated a resolution to this.[4] In May 1922, O'Mara established a Limerick City Police Force to replace the withdrawn Royal Irish Constabulary.[8] In June a general Civil War broke out across the nascent Irish Free State. The City Police Force was replaced in July by the Free State Civic Guard.[8] O'Mara was interned by the Free State in November, but re-elected Mayor in January 1923; he was released in March.[4] He resigned as Mayor in October, after the Civil War had ended in defeat for the anti-Treaty side.[4]

O'Mara was a loyal supporter of Éamon de Valera, who was staying at his home of Strand House the night the Treaty was signed[4] O'Mara himself was still in the US with Harry Boland.[9] The evening before the 1922 general election, de Valera, O'Mara, and Boland dined together and discussed a possible grand coalition government.[10] He joined Fianna Fáil on its formation in 1926.[3] He was a member of the Commission of Vocational Organisations from 1933 to 1943.[3] His expanded the family bacon business, opening factories in Claremorris and Letterkenny.[1][3] When de Valera won the 1959 election to become President, he appointed O'Mara to the Council of State.[11] O'Mara died less than two months later in the Mater Hospital, Dublin.[2][3]

Notes

  1. ↑ Humphrys says 1884; AskAboutIreland says 1886; Limerick Leader obituary says "in his seventy-fifth year"

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Humphrys, Mark. "Stephen O'Mara, of Strand House". My ancestors. HumphrysFamilyTree.com. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  2. 1 2 "Obituary: Mr Stephen M. O'Mara". The Irish Times. 11 November 1959. p. 7.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Death of Prominent Limerick Citizen" (PDF). Limerick Leader. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ó Gríofa, Ciarán. "Stephen O'Mara and the Limerick Crisis, March 1922". Foundation Wars 1914–1923 (PDF). pp. 268–273.
  5. ↑ Fitzpatrick, David (December 2004). Harry Boland's Irish Revolution. Cork University Press. p. 205. ISBN 978-1-85918-386-1. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  6. ↑ http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1922/09/13/00013.asp |chapter-url= missing title (help). Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Dáil. 13 September 1922.
  7. ↑ Carroll, Francis M. (July 2002). Money for Ireland: finance, diplomacy, politics, and the first Dáil Éireann loans, 1919–1936. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-97710-8.
  8. 1 2 "Limerick Police Force, 1922,". City Archives. Limerick City Council. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  9. ↑ Fitzpatrick 2004, p.263
  10. ↑ Fitzpatrick 2004, p.280
  11. ↑ "New members of Council of State". The Irish Times. 24 September 1959. p. 1.
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