James O'Connor

Who was James O'Connor?

James O'Connor was an Irish journalist and nationalist politician who sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as a Member of Parliament from 1892 to 1910, first for the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation and then for the re-united Irish Parliamentary Party.

He was born in the Glen of Imaal, County Wicklow .

O'Connor was elected as the MP for West Wicklow at the general election in July 1892. He was re-elected as anti-Parnellite in 1895, and as an IPP candidate in 1900, 1906 and January 1910, and died in office in March 1910, aged 74.

In 1863 or thereabouts he was recruited by Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, business manager of the Irish Republican Brotherhood newspaper Irish People, as assistant manager and book-keeper. His younger brother John acted as office messenger and later devoted his entire adult life to secret work for the IRB. James O'Connor was responsible for the commercial side of the paper during Rossa's prolonged absences and appears to have been unbusinesslike. He was imprisoned from 1865 onwards along with other Fenians who worked on the paper and was released with them from Portland prison on 4 March 1869. He then found employment on the Irishman.