Bringing home the bacon – Brian Maye on James O’Mara, MP and TD

James O’Mara, who was born 150 years ago on August 6th, contributed significantly to the movement that secured Irish independence. One of his lasting political achievements was to help make St Patrick’s Day a national holiday, which it has been since 1903.

He was the eldest surviving son among seven sons and five daughters of Stephen O’Mara, a Limerick bacon merchant, and Ellen Pigott. His father had been a Fenian and a supporter of Issac Butt and Charles Stewart Parnell and a Home Rule MP for a time before devoting himself fully to the meat business. Following attendance at Christian Brothers School, Limerick, James went to Clongowes Wood College in Co Kildare.

Entering the family business on leaving school in 1892, he studied for a degree at the Royal University of Ireland (RUI) at the same time, but his studies were interrupted when he had to move to London to become family-business agent on the death of his Uncle Jim (this must have been a difficult move for him as he’d been doing extremely well academically).

At first discouraged by this work, he eventually saw progress with an increase in sales, and was able to complete his degree at the RUI in 1898.

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In 1900, with the London agency thriving, he was elected MP for Kilkenny South, becoming one of the two youngest MPs at Westminster (the other was Winston Churchill). He secured a valuable agency in Romania for the family firm in 1902 and the following year seconded an Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) Bill to make St Patrick’s Day a national holiday in Ireland. Although re-elected in the 1906 general election, he was growing disillusioned with Westminster and increasingly interested in the new Sinn Féin movement set up by Arthur Griffith. He felt the Irish MPs were too London-focused and thus losing touch with realities at home and in 1907, disenchanted with the limited scope of the Irish Councils Bill, he resigned his seat and joined Sinn Féin.

Returning to Dublin in 1914 to manage Donnelly’s bacon factory in the city, which had been bought by his father in 1906, he strongly supported Griffith’s movement and his papers.

With the reorganisation and extension of Sinn Féin in 1917-18, he was much more centrally involved, becoming director of finances and director of elections. “His formidable administrative skills helped to bring about the landmark result of the December 1918 election as well as his own election to the first Dáil as deputy (1918-21) for Kilkenny South,” according to Shaun Boylan, who wrote the entry on him in the Dictionary of Irish Biography. He thus became one of the few politicians to have sat in the House of Commons and Dáil Éireann.

When Eamon de Valera toured the US, he requested that O’Mara join him to build up a fundraising organisation, and he had to cross the Atlantic as a ship stowaway because he was refused an exit visa. He proved enormously successful in creating fundraising structures in the US, to the extent that more than $3 million were raised to support the Irish independence struggle and he became trustee of Dáil funds. Before returning to Ireland in late 1920, de Valera proposed raising a further loan and imposing a levy on members of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic (AARIR), an organisation he’d formed after quarrelling with John Devoy’s Friends of Irish Freedom. O’Mara thought it insulting to impose a levy as well as asking for a loan and was further irritated with de Valera’s insistence – from Ireland – that the costs of the American operation be curtailed (this must have been particularly galling for O’Mara as he was so careful about controlling expenditure that he spent some £10,000 of his own money covering expenses).

When de Valera insisted on pushing through his proposal, O’Mara resigned as trustee and said he’d not stand again for the Dáil. On returning to Ireland, he initially concentrated on business matters but strongly supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and provided a loan to Griffith and Michael Collins to cover their 1922 election campaigns. He made a brief return to politics as Cumann na nGaedheal TD for Dublin South (1924-27) but turned down a cabinet position and thereafter devoted himself to the family business before retiring in the 1930s.

In April 1895, he married Agnes Cashel; they had one son and six daughters. Following his retirement, he and Agnes enjoyed cruises to the West Indies and travelled in North and South America, Africa and the Middle East. He died on November 21st, 1948, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.