Pádraic Ó Máille

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Pádraic Ó Máille (23 February 1878 – 19 January 1946) was an Irish politician. He was born in County Galway and was a farmer. He was a founder member of Sinn Féin and the Gaelic League in Galway. He was a member of the Irish Volunteers from 1917–1921.

He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for Galway Connemara in the 1918 general election. In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled in Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann. He was re-elected as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for Galway in the 1921 elections. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected as a Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin for Galway in the 1922 general election, and was elected as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD for Galway in the 1923 general election. In the subsequent Irish Civil War, he was targeted for assassination by Anti-Treaty forces and was shot and badly wounded in Dublin in December 1922. His fellow TD, Sean Hales was killed in the incident.

He was critical of the proposed Boundary Commission and resigned from Cumann na nGaedhael and founded Clann Éireann in 1926. He lost his seat in the June 1927 general election and was unsuccessful in the September 1927 general election. He later joined Fianna Fáil (the party which had emerged from the Anti-Treaty side in the civil war) and contested the 1932 general election for that party in Dublin County but was not elected. On each of these occasions he was subjected to a smear campaign by his former party colleagues who used his pro-treaty stance during the civil war against him. It was alleged that he had personally selected his fellow county man Liam Mellows for execution. These smears persisted despite denials from the Mellows family and from Ó Máille himself. In fact, Mellows was executed in reprisal for the attack on Ó Máille and Sean Hales in 1922. Mellows was shot the following day while Ó Máille himself was gravely wounded and in hospital.

He served as a Fianna Fáil Senator in Seanad Éireann from 1934–1936. He was re-elected to the Seanad in 1938 on the Agricultural Panel. From 1939 until his death he was re-appointed to the Seanad as a nominee by then Taoiseach Éamon de Valera. He was Leas-Chathaoirleach of the Seanad from 1938 to 1942. He died on 19 January 1946.

[edit] Sources

  • Richard Dunphy (1995), The Making of Fianna Fáil Power in Ireland: 1923-48
  • Michael O'Cuinneagáin (1996), On the Arm of Time
  • This page incorporates information from the Oireachtas Members Database

[edit] External links