Owen Sheehy-Skeffington

Irish academic and politician (1909–1970)

Owen Lancelot Sheehy Skeffington (19 May 1909 – 7 June 1970) was an Irish university lecturer and senator. The son of pacifists, feminists and socialists Francis and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, he was politically likeminded and as a member of the Irish Senate was praised as a defender of civil liberty, democracy, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, women's rights, minority rights and many other liberal values. As a three year old, Francis had taken Owen to see his mother while she was incarcerated at Mountjoy Prison, having been sentenced to two months imprisonment for her actions in defence of women's rights. At five years old he was taken by Hanna to see Francis while he was incarcerated at Mountjoy because of his campaign against conscription during World War I. It became University College Dublin, one of three colleges in the new National University of Ireland, in 1908. The others were University College Galway and University College Cork. It was around this time that he began his doctoral studies studying the work of l'Abbaye de Créteil, which he later converted into a thesis on the work of ‘Jules Romains, the Apostle of Unanimisme’, for which he was awarded a PhD at Trinity in 1935. She later wrote a biography of her husband, Skeff: A Life of Owen Sheehy Skeffington, 1909–1970. They resided at Hazelbrook Cottage, Terenure, Dublin. The couple had three children together, two boys and a girl. Other sources suggest communists in Dublin, who had entered the Labour Party under the doctrine of entryism, had ousted him because they perceived him to be veering towards Trotskyism. Others, such as Noël Browne, suggested he had been expelled for "simply being too liberal". Sheehy Skeffington referred to himself as a "Liberal Socialist", which in more present times might be best understood to mean a proponent of Left libertarianism. In 1954 Sheehy Skeffington moved into formal parliamentarian politics when was elected as a member of the 8th Seanad by the Dublin University constituency. He was re elected in 1957, but lost his seat in 1961. He was returned to the 11th Seanad in 1965 and was re elected for a final time in 1969. In the Seanad he was known as a champion of civil liberties and an opponent of authoritarianism. Among many issues, he campaigned for an end to corporal punishment in Irish schools, an end of control by the Catholic Church of government funded schools, stood against censorship, denounced terrorism, championed women's rights and opposed Apartheid. On matters of the "Irish Question", Sheehy Skeffington cited James Connolly's analysis and suggested both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland each needed political reform first, then merged, rather than the other way around. Still citing Connolly, he also voiced the view that Irish independence from the United Kingdom meant nothing if all it amounted to was to change the colour of the flag flying over its institutions, and instead, the change must also be a meaningful change in conditions for the people of Ireland. He also noted that at least 4 of the 6 counties which made up Northern Ireland were made up of solid majorities of Protestant Unionists who he argued could not be coerced, by violence or otherwise, into the Irish state and that Republicans needed to accept this reality and alter their tactics accordingly, with more emphasis given to social conditions. He was an atheist and helped set up the Humanist Association of Ireland. He was also a co founder and active member of the Irish Association for Civil Liberty, which he co founded in 1948 with the writer Seán Ó Faoláin and others. In the late 1950s the memorialist Peter Tyrrell began a long lasting correspondence with him. Sheehy Skeffington encouraged Tyrrell to write his autobiography, which was published posthumously and helped to expose the brutal conditions in Irish Industrial schools, and in Letterfrack in particular. After Tyrrell committed suicide in 1967 the only clue to his identity was a card addressed to Sheehy Skeffington. On the eve of Sheehy Skeffington's death the Arms Crisis was beginning to play out and one of Sheehy Skeffington's final acts was to send a letter to Taoiseach Jack Lynch expressing support for his actions taken against Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, dismissing them from cabinet.

Since 1973, Trinity College Dublin has offered the Owen Sheehy Skeffington Memorial Award – a bursary worth €1,500 awarded annually – as a maintenance grant or as a travel award in alternate years. The criteria for the award include a combination of academic promise and financial need. The maintenance grant is available to senior freshmen or junior sophisters studying French at Trinity College, while the travelling scholarship may be granted to any student attending a centre of higher education in Ireland.

The National Library of Ireland houses Sheehy Skeffington's papers. His daughter, Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, challenged perceived gender inequality at NUI Galway. She was one of 46 people from across the campus to apply for a post of senior lectureship in 2008, was shortlisted for interview, was interviewed, but upon being unsuccessful took a case which pressured Galway to introduce gender quotas for promotion schemes and "inclusivity and unconscious bias training programmes" for workers.