Tomás Mac Curtain

Who was Tomás Mac Curtain?

Tomás Mac Curtain was a Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, Ireland. He was elected in January 1920.

He was born at Ballyknockane in the Parish of Mourne Abbey in March 1884. He attended Burnfort National School. In 1897 the family moved to Blackpool on the northside of Cork city where he attended The North Monastery School. Mac Curtain became active in numerous cultural and political movements from the turn of the nineteenth century when he joined the Blackpool, Cork branch of Conradh na Gaeilge, becoming its secretary in 1902. He had diverse interests in music, poetry, history, archaeology and Irish history. He worked in his early career as a clerk and in his free time taught Irish to those who wished to learn. In 1911 he joined the Fianna Éireann and was a founding member of the Irish Volunteers.

He met Eilish Walsh at a Gaelic League meeting and they married in 1908. They had six children, five of whom survived into adulthood. The family lived over number 40 Thomas Davis Street where Tomás had a small clothing and rainwear factory.