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Stephen O'Mara (senator)
Stephen O'Mara (26 December 1844 – 26 July 1926)[1][2] was an Irish nationalist politician and businessman from Limerick. Personal lifeO'Mara's father James O'Mara was an early supporter of Isaac Butt, and owned a bacon factory in Limerick.[3] Stephen entered the family business.[1] His brother Joseph O'Mara became an opera singer. Stephen married Ellen Pigott in 1867.[1] They had 12 children, of whom the first three died of diphtheria in 1872.[1] Sons James and Stephen, Jnr became prominent Irish republicans and radicalised their father's later political views.[1] A daughter Ellen, was also a nationalist, and she and her husband started the most prolific Irish Silent film company, Film Company of Ireland.[4] Political careerO'Mara joined Limerick Corporation in 1881,[3] becoming the first Nationalist Mayor of Limerick in 1885.[1][5] He served again the following year,[5] and headed a campaign to raise funds for an organ for the Limerick Athenaeum.[6] In a by-election in February 1886, he was returned unopposed as Irish Parliamentary Party MP for Queen's County Ossory.[1] He did not stand in the July 1886 general election. He was High Sheriff of Limerick city in 1888, 1913, and 1914.[5] O'Mara took the Parnellite side when the Irish National League split in the 1890s.[1] In 1908, he resigned as trustee of the Party's funds.[1] In the 1918 general election, O'Mara supported Sinn Féin as it eclipsed the less radical Irish Parliamentary Party.[1] His sons were active in the Irish War of Independence; in the Irish Civil War, Stephen Snr was pro-Treaty,[1] as was his MP son James O'Mara; Stephen Jnr was anti-Treaty, though relatively conciliatory. In the 1925 election to the Free State Seanad, O'Mara was elected on the 65th and final count.[7][8] He died the following year. References
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