Bernard Brian O'Rourke[lower-alpha 1] (3 November 1874[1] – c.1 July 1956[2]) was an Irish politician and businessman from Inniskeen, County Monaghan.[1]
Brian O'Rourke | |
|---|---|
| Senator | |
| In office 27 April 1938 – 7 September 1938 | |
| Constituency | Industrial and Commercial Panel |
| Senator | |
| In office 11 December 1922 – 29 May 1936 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Bernard Brian O'Rourke 3 November 1874 County Monaghan, Ireland |
| Died | 1 July 1956 (aged 81) County Monaghan, Ireland |
| Political party | |
| Spouse |
Clare Clinton (m. 1907) |
| Children | 7 |
O'Rourke inherited a farm and corn mill outside Inniskeen and acquired a larger mill in Dundalk. He bought Belleek Pottery in 1918 and co-founded Arklow Pottery in 1934.[2] Initially a supporter of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), he was elected to Carrickmacross urban district council in 1899 and Monaghan County Council in 1905, and made a justice of the peace (JP) in 1906. He broke with the IPP when the Irish Volunteers split on the outbreak of World War I and IPP leader John Redmond advocated supporting the British war effort. For endorsing the 1916 Easter Rising, O'Rourke was interned and dismissed as a JP.[1] During the Irish War of Independence he was a magistrate in the Dáil Courts.[1] He supported the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. Several of his properties were damaged by anti-Treaty forces in the Irish Civil War.[3]
After the 1922 creation of the Irish Free State, O'Rourke was the fourth of 30 members of Seanad Éireann elected by members of the 3rd Dáil,[4] serving a nine-year term and being re-elected in 1931 for another nine years,[5] cut short by the Seanad's 1936 abolition.[6] He was a member of Cumann na nGaedheal and its successor Fine Gael,[6] for which he stood unsuccessfully in the Monaghan constituency in the 1937 general election.[7] He returned to the reconstituted Seanad at the April 1938 election on the Industrial and Commercial Panel.[6] Except for a gap from 1925 to 1929, he remained a county councillor until 1945.[1]
O'Rourke married Clare Clinton in 1907; they had four daughters and three sons.[1] His papers from the Irish revolutionary period were deposited at University College Dublin in 1993.[1]
References
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