O'connell, Maurice R. 1922–2005

(Maurice Rickard O'Connell)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born December 30, 1922, in, Tipperary, Ireland; died September 27, 2005, in Offaly, Ireland. Historian, educator, and author. O'Connell was a history professor best known for his multi-volume edition The Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell (1973–74). Originally, he attended medical school at Trinity College, Dublin because it was his father's wish. However, he dropped out after a year and spent 1941 through 1953 working at the Bank of Ireland. It was a job O'Connell deplored, and to help stimulate his mind he attended history courses at University College, Dublin. Here, he earned a B.A. in 1952 and an M.A. with first class honors in 1954. He then moved to the United States, where he taught at the University of Portland from 1958 to 1961. O'Connell completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1962 while continuing to teach at Portland. He then moved to Fordham University in 1964; he became a full professor there in 1973 and retired in 1987. O'Connell's reputation as an historian was first established with the publication of his debut work, Irish Politics and Social Conflict in the Age of the American Revolution (1965). However, it was for his editorship of The Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell that he became most recognized. Daniel O'Connell was the historian's great-great-grandfather and a controversial Irish nationalist who helped liberate his country from the English but who was also condemned by staunch republicans for his refusal to use violence in his cause. O'Connell later coedited Daniel O'Connell: Portrait of a Radical (1984) with Kevin B. Nowlan, and Daniel O'Connell: Political Power (1990). He was the author of Daniel O'Connell: The Man and His Politics (1990).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), October 5, 2005, p. 72.

ONLINE

Unison, http://www.unison.ie/ (October 2, 2005).