The topsy-turvy political career of Mayo's Michael Ó Mórain

By Tom Gillespie

IT is 39 years ago this week since former Minister for Lands, the Gaeltacht and Justice Michael Ó Mórain - Mick Moran - (70) passed away.

He was born in Castlebar on December 25, 1912, and had a very topsy-turvy political career.

He lost his Fianna Fáil seat in the 1973 general election in the West Mayo constituency when Westport businessman Myles Staunton took the seat for Fine Gael.

I remember being at the count in the dining hall at the military barracks in Castlebar on March 1, 1973, when the tally figures indicated Mick Moran’s political career was coming to an end.

Staunton headed the poll with 6,381 first preference votes. Henry Kenny (FG) retained his seat with 6,024 first preference votes, as did FF's Denis Gallagher with 4,255. The quota was 6,277.

There were two other candidates - Mick Moran, who then retired from politics, and Joe Lenehan (FF), who received 4,971 and 3,475 first preference votes respectively.

Staunton, who was 38 when he took the seat, first stood for the Dáil at the 1969 general election for the Mayo West constituency but was unsuccessful. He lost his Dáil seat at the 1977 general election when Padraig Flynn was elected in the now historic Fianna Fáil landslide victory. Staunton, however, was elected to the 14th Seanad on the Administrative Panel.

Ó Móráin, who was a solicitor by profession, served in a wide number of ministries from 1957 until 1970, most notably as Ministers for Justice, Lands and the Gaeltacht.

He hailed from a strong Republican background and family members had fought in the War of Independence and Civil War on the pro-Treaty side.

Ó Móráin was first elected to Dáil Éireann for the Mayo South constituency on his second attempt at the 1938 general election. He remained on the backbenches for a number of years until he was appointed to the cabinet by Éamon de Valera in 1957 as Minister for the Gaeltacht. He was a native Irish speaker.

He was appointed Minister for Lands by Taoiseach Seán Lemass in 1959 and was reappointed to the Gaeltacht portfolio in 1961. He remained in these two departments until 1968.

Ó Móráin was a very outspoken deputy.

He was appointed Minister for Justice by Taoiseach Jack Lynch in 1968. It is in this role that he is most remembered.

Ó Móráin continually suffered from ill health. In 1970, while in hospital, Lynch came to see him and asked for his resignation as a result of the outbreak of the Arms Crisis.

Lynch had received information that a number of ministers were allegedly complicit in the importation of arms for use in Northern Ireland. Some hours later the other ministers in question, Neil Blaney and Charles Haughey, were asked to resign but refused to do so and were sacked. Recent evidence, from papers released under the 30-year rule, suggest that the Minister for Defence, Jim Gibbons, was also named on the documentation given to Lynch, but his resignation was not asked for.

Ó Móráin later spoke of his experiences at this time. He claimed that the whole business of the Arms Trial was badly handled. He claimed it was he who had unearthed the whole business of the arms through undercover Garda Síochána Special Branch who were working for him in Northern Ireland and that he told Lynch the identity of the person involved.

He also claimed Blaney and Haughey were not implicated with the arms in question and that the wrong people had been sacked.

Ó Móráin held the post of Minister for Justice from March 1968 to May 1970. During that period when once asked when did the pubs close in Achill, his response was ‘September’.

He held the post of Minister for the Gaeltacht from October 1961 to March 1968, and also held the Gaeltacht portfolio from June 1957 to July 1959. He was Minister for Lands from July 1959 to March 1968.

Ó Móráin was a personal friend of Connaught Telegraph journalist Bernie Gillespie and I recall how on many occasions he would come into the upstairs newsroom and dictate stories to Bernie sitting at the typewriter.

In 1967 Ó Móráin announced the decentralisation of the Department of Lands to Castlebar, now known as Davitt House, which was carried exclusively in The Connaught Telegraph.

Nine years later, on June 21, 1976, the big move west began when sections of the Department of Lands moved to Castlebar.

One hundred civil servants took up their posts as part of the first phase transfer to the county town. Later they were joined by 60 extra, including 36 locally based staff who had been recruited and underwent training in Dublin.

The new offices were officially opened on June 28, 1976, by then Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave.

A report in The Connaught Telegraph that month said the building consisted of two two-storey office blocks totalling 3,000 square feet of office space to be named Michael Davitt House in memory of the founder of the Land League who was born in Straide, nine miles from Castlebar.

Following the opening a further 120 civil servants attached to the local offices of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries - who were housed in the Military Barracks - and the Revenue Commissioners, moved into the new offices.

Michael Ó Mórain died on May 6, 1983, and was buried in the new section of the old cemetery which now adjoins the Lough Lannagh loop.