Conor Cruise O'Brien

Conor Cruise O'Brien ( Irish Conchúr Crús Ó Briain ; born November 3, 1917 in Dublin , † December 18, 2008 in Howth ) was an Irish politician and journalist. O'Brien, who had a career in the Treasury and later the State Department, was one of the leading intellectuals in the Irish Labor Party in the 1960s.

Life

After serving as an official, O'Brien worked for the United Nations and was sent in 1960/1961 by UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld as a special representative to the still young Democratic Republic of the Congo .

After that, O'Brien devoted himself to his academic career and eventually returned to Ireland. In the 1969 elections he entered the constituency of North-East Dublin and won a seat in the Dáil Éireann for the Irish Labor Party . He remained Teachta Dála until his electoral defeat in 1977 . During this time O'Brien was a member of the first Irish delegation to the European Parliament and was a member of the European Parliament from January 1, 1973 for two months until the Irish general elections . He was then from March 14, 1973 to May 25, 1977 Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the Fine Gael / Irish Labor Party coalition government of Liam Cosgrave . Two months after his electoral defeat in 1977 he was elected to the Seanad Éireann , which he belonged to until his resignation on June 13, 1979.

From 1978 O'Brien worked as editor-in-chief at the British newspaper The Observer and held this post for the next three years. The acronym GUBU was circulated by O'Brien.

O'Brien was an outspoken opponent of Republicanism and was a member of Robert McCartney's United Kingdom Unionist Party in Northern Ireland from 1996 . In 2005 he returned to the Labor Party.

family

O'Brien was married to the writer Máire Mhac an tSaoi for the second time and had two adopted children with her. He had three children from his first marriage.

Works

• To Katanga and back , German version by Margarete Carroux: Meine Mission in Katanga. Disclosure of global political backgrounds , Munich 1963.
• Murderous Angels (drama), Boston 1968, German translation by Dagobert Lindlau : Mörderische Engel , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1971.
• The UN ritual of the burning world , Reinbek near Hamburg 1971.

literature

• Conor C. O'Brien , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 42/1987 of October 5, 1987, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Literature by and about Conor Cruise O'Brien in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on the side of the Oireachtas
• Obituary on www.irishtimes.com

Individual evidence

1. ^ Conor Cruise O'Brien, Irish Diplomat, Is Dead at 91 , December 19, 2008, The New York Times