In 1962, Cruise O'Brien married the Irish-language writer and poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi in a Roman Catholic church. The marriage ended in divorce after 20 years. The couple had three children: Donal, Fedelma, and Kathleen (Kate), who died in 1998. Cruise O'Brien and Christine Foster were married in a registry office in 1939. He was a former Ulster, Ireland and British & Irish Lions rugby player, having captained Ireland three times between 19. Alec Foster was at the time headmaster of Belfast Royal Academy he was later a founding member of the Wolfe Tone Society, and was a strong supporter of the Irish Anti-Apartheid movement. Her parents, Alexander (Alec) Roulston Foster and Anne (Annie) Lynd, were in Cruise O’Brien's description, "Home Rulers a very advanced position for any Protestants in the period".
His first wife, Christine Foster, from a Belfast Presbyterian family, was, like her father, a member of the Gaelic League. Cruise O'Brien was elected a scholar in Modern Languages at Trinity in 1937 and was editor of Trinity's weekly, TCD: A College Miscellany. While others stood, Cruise O'Brien and Sheehy-Skeffington sat in protest on such occasions. Cruise O'Brien subsequently attended Trinity College Dublin, which played the British national anthem until 1939. He wanted Conor educated, like Conor's cousin Owen, in Sandford Park School that had a predominantly Protestant ethos, a wish Kathleen honoured. These women, Hanna and Kathleen in particular, were a major influence on Cruise O'Brien's upbringing alongside Hanna's son, Owen Sheehy-Skeffington. Soon afterwards Mary's husband, Thomas Kettle, an officer of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the First World War, was killed during the Battle of the Somme. Hanna's husband, the well-known pacifist and supporter of women's suffrage Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, was executed by firing squad on the orders of Captain J.C Bowen Colthurst during the 1916 Easter Rising. She had three sisters, Hanna, Margaret and Mary. She was the daughter of David Sheehy, a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party and organiser of the Irish National Land League. Frank was a journalist with the Freeman's Journal and Irish Independent newspapers, and had edited an essay written 50 years earlier by William Lecky concerning the influence of the clergy on Irish politics. O'Brien was later known primarily as an author and as an Irish Independent and Sunday Independent columnist.Ĭonor Cruise O'Brien was born at 44 Leinster Road, Rathmines, Dublin, to Francis ("Frank") Cruise O'Brien and the former Kathleen Sheehy. During those years he was also the Labour Party's Northern Ireland spokesman. He served as a Minister for Posts & Telegraphs, with responsibility for broadcasting, between 19 in a coalition government. At the 1969 general election, he was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party TD for Dublin North-East. In the 1960s he was associated with the 'New Left' and opposition to US military involvement in Viet Nam. Views O'Brien espoused during and after the 1970s contrasted with those he articulated during the 1950s and 1960s.ĭuring his 1945–61 career as a civil servant, Cruise O'Brien promoted the government's anti- partition campaign. Internationally, though a long-standing member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, he opposed in person the African National Congress's academic boycott of the apartheid regime in South Africa. He summarised his position as intending "to administer an electric shock to the Irish psyche". Cruise O'Brien's outlook was radical and seldom orthodox. He saw opposing nationalist and unionist traditions as irreconcilable and switched from a nationalist to a unionist view of Irish politics and history, and from opposition to support for partition. His opinion of Britain's role in Ireland, after independence and partition in 1921, changed during the 1970s, in response to the outbreak of The Troubles. Donal Conor David Dermot Donat Cruise O'Brien (3 November 1917 – 18 December 2008 ), often nicknamed "The Cruiser", was an Irish politician, writer, historian and academic who served as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs from 1973 to 1977, a Senator for University of Dublin from 1977 to 1979, a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-East constituency from 1969 to 1977 and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from January 1973 to March 1973.
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