Thomas O'Donnell

Who was Thomas O'Donnell?

Thomas O'Donnell was an Irish nationalist politician of the Irish Parliamentary Party who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for West Kerry from 1900 to 1918. He was an active promoter of agrarian reform. M.A.. Chairman of the Tralee and Dingle Railway. Became a prominent Irish Judge.

Son of Michael O'Donnell and Ellen Rohan, he came from a Gaelic-speaking family in Liscarney, Ballyduff, on the Dingle Peninsula, but his family were evicted during the Irish Land League's Land War in 1880, and lived in a small cabin for the next seven years. He became a national teacher after qualifying in Marlborough Street Training College, teaching in a boys' school in Killorglin from 1892 until 1900.

Early in life he allied himself with the Home Rule movement, while concerning himself with the land issue, and in 1898 formalised that commitment by joining with William O'Brien in the United Irish League. This organisation pursued the breaking up of large farms, and O'Donnell was to prove himself a tenacious fighter for tenant rights. Even at the end of the 20th century, his efforts at a local level are recalled.

He was a close associate of Maurice Moynihan, leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Kerry, as well as founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association club in Kerry in 1885, father of Maurice Gerard Moynihan, and in 1900 chairman of O'Donnell's election campaign committee. O'Donnell was involved with the Gaelic League from 1893 and was instrumental in having the Irish Party force a debate in the House of Commons on the use of Gaelic in national schools. Despite his roots, he wasn't a fervent nationalist and shunned the Fenian tendencies of many of his more strident contemporaries.