Cormac Kevin Hooker O'Malley (born 20 July 1942, Dublin) is an Irish-American author and historian. The third child of Irish republican Ernie O'Malley and American sculptor Helen Hooker, [1] O'Malley was brought up in County Mayo and later educated in England before moving to the United States to live with his mother after his father's death in 1957. He resides in Stonington, Connecticut.
O'Malley has edited his father's three memoirs on the militant Irish nationalist struggle from 1916 to 1924: On Another Man’s Wound, The Singing Flame and Raids and Rallies, and owns the copyright to these works. In 2021 he co-authored a biography on his father, Ernie O'Malley: A Life. [2] [3]
He is also the custodian of the many papers left by his father and mother and has been active in promoting his family's heritage through books, film, seminars and lectures. [4] He has entrusted his father's nationalist struggle papers to UCD Archives and those of a non-nationalist nature to NYU Archives of Irish America. [5]
O'Malley has been prominent in Irish American cultural exchange, including serving as Glucksman Ireland House Board of Advisors President. He was organiser of the 2014 symposium on Ernie O'Malley and Modern Ireland and Revolution at Glucksman Ireland House. He was also the producer for A Call to Arts, a 2020 documentary on his parents' journey through the arts. [6]
Seán Mac Eoin was an Irish republican and later Fine Gael politician who was Minister for Defence briefly in 1951 and from 1954 to 1957, and Minister for Justice from 1948 to 1951. He had been Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces from February 1929 to October 1929. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1921 to 1923 and from 1929 to 1965.
William Fanaghan Lynch was an Irish Republican Army officer during the Irish War of Independence of 1919–1921. During much of the Irish Civil War, he was chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army. On 10 April 1923, Lynch was killed whilst trying to escape an encirclement by Free State troops in south Tipperary.
William Joseph Mellows was an Irish republican and Sinn Féin politician. Born in England to an English father and Irish mother, he grew up in Ashton-under-Lyne before moving to Ireland, being raised in Cork, Dublin and his mother's native Wexford. He was active with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Irish Volunteers, and participated in the Easter Rising in County Galway and the War of Independence. Elected as a TD to the First Dáil, he rejected the Anglo-Irish Treaty. During the Irish Civil War Mellows was captured by Pro-Treaty forces after the surrender of the Four Courts in June 1922. On 8 December 1922 he was one of four senior IRA men executed by the Provisional Government.
The Royal College of Science for Ireland (RCScI) was an institute for higher education in Dublin which existed from 1867 to 1926, specialising in physical sciences and applied science. It was originally based on St. Stephen's Green, moving in 1911 to a purpose-built "Royal College of Science" building on Merrion Street, now known as Government Buildings. In 1926 it was absorbed into University College Dublin (UCD) as the faculty of Science and Engineering.
Ernest Bernard Malley was an Irish republican and writer. After a sheltered upbringing, as a young medical student he witnessed and participated in the Easter Rising of 1916, an event that changed his outlook fundamentally. O'Malley soon joined the Irish Volunteers before leaving home in spring 1918 to become an IRA organiser and training officer during the Irish War of Independence against British rule in Ireland. In the later period of that conflict, he was appointed a divisional commander with the rank of general. Subsequently, O'Malley strongly opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and became assistant chief of staff of the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War of 1922–1923.
George Gavan Duffy was an Irish politician, barrister and judge who served as President of the High Court from 1946 to 1951, a Judge of the High Court from 1936 to 1951 and Minister for Foreign Affairs from January 1922 to July 1922. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin County constituency from 1921 to 1923. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Dublin South constituency from 1918 to 1921.
Roderick O'Connor was an Irish republican who was Director of Engineering for the IRA in the Irish War of Independence. O'Connor opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and was chairman of the republican military council that became the Anti-Treaty IRA in March 1922. He was the main spokesman for the republican side in the lead-up to the outbreak of the Irish Civil War in June of that year. On 30 June, O'Connor was taken prisoner at the conclusion of the attack by Free State forces on the Four Courts in Dublin. On 8 December 1922, he was executed along with three other senior members of the IRA Four Courts garrison. All four men were executed without trial or courts martial.
The Battle of Dublin was a week of street battles in Dublin from 28 June to 5 July 1922 that marked the beginning of the Irish Civil War. Six months after the Anglo-Irish Treaty ended the recent Irish War of Independence, it was fought between the forces of the new Provisional Government and a section of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) that opposed the Treaty.
Booterstown is a coastal suburb of the city of Dublin in Ireland. It is also a townland and civil parish in the modern county of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown. It is situated about 7 km (4.3 mi) south of Dublin city centre.
Hugh McFadden is an Irish poet, literary editor, lecturer and freelance journalist.
Joseph McKelvey was an Irish Republican Army officer who was executed during the Irish Civil War without trial or court martial. He participated in the Anti-Treaty IRA's repudiation of the authority of the Dáil Éireann, the civil government of the Irish Republic declared in 1919 in March 1922, and was elected to the IRA Army Council as Deputy Chief of Staff. In April 1922, he helped command the occupation of the Four Courts in defiance of the new Irish Free State. This action helped to spark the civil war, between pro- and anti-treaty factions. McKelvey was among the most hardline of the republican side and, briefly in June 1922, became IRA Chief of Staff.
John Jordan was an Irish poet and short-story writer.
Souperism was a phenomenon of the Irish Great Famine. Protestant Bible societies set up schools in which starving children were fed, on the condition of receiving Protestant religious instruction at the same time. Its practitioners were reviled by the Catholic families who had to choose between Protestantism and starvation. People who converted for food were known as "soupers", "jumpers" and "cat breacs". In the words of their peers, they "took the soup". Although souperism did not occur frequently, the perception of it had a lasting effect on the popular memory of the Famine. It blemished the relief work by Protestants who gave aid without proselytising, and the rumour of souperism may have discouraged starving Catholics from attending soup kitchens for fear of betraying their faith.
The McMahon killings or the McMahon murders occurred on 24 March 1922 when six Catholic civilians were shot dead at the home of the McMahon family in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A group of police officers broke into their house at night and shot all eight males inside, in an apparent sectarian attack. The victims were businessman Owen McMahon, four of his sons, and one of his employees. Two others were shot but survived, and a female family member was assaulted. The survivors said most of the gunmen wore police uniform and it is suspected they were members of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It is believed to have been a reprisal for the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) killing of two policemen on May Street, Belfast the day before.
Sheila Humphreys, also known as Sighle Humphreys, was an Irish political activist and member of Cumann na mBan.
George Oliver Plunkett, known to his contemporaries as Seoirse Plunkett, was a militant Irish republican. He was sentenced to death with his elder brother Joseph Plunkett and his younger brother John after the 1916 Easter Rising, but while Joseph was executed, George's and John's sentences were commuted. He was released in 1917, fought in the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War, and was briefly IRA Chief of Staff during World War II.
Helen Huntington Hooker or Helen Hooker O'Malley Roelefs was an American sculptor and portrait painter who spent a considerable part of her career in Ireland.
Mabel Washington Fitzgerald was an Irish republican, suffragette, and socialist. She took part in the 1916 Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence. She was the mother of Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and wife of Desmond FitzGerald.
Eoin Neeson was an Irish journalist, historian, novelist and playwright.
In October 1923 mass hunger strikes were undertaken by Irish republican prisoners protesting the continuation of their internment without trial. The Irish Civil War had ended six months earlier yet the newly formed Provisional Government of the Irish Free State was slow in releasing the thousands of Irish republican prisoners opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.