Mark Killilea Snr

his son
Irish politician (1897–1970)

Mark Killilea Snr (15 January 1897 – 29 September 1970) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician. He was a Teachta Dála (TD) for constituencies in County Galway for over 30 years, and then a Senator for 8 years.

Killilea was born in the townland of Cloonnabricka, Ballinamore Bridge, County Galway, to Pat Killilea, a labourer, and Anne Giblin. Killilea claimed membership of the Irish Volunteers from 1917 and engaged in active service with the Irish Republican Army from April 1918 to September 1923, during the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War, in counties Wexford, Galway and Mayo. He was wounded in May 1921. Killilea was a founder member of Fianna Fáil and a farmer and shopkeeper before entering politics. He took his seat in the 5th Dáil, along with the 44 other Fianna Fáil TDs who ended the Republican policy of abstentionism and took the disputed oath of allegiance, dismissing it as an "empty formula". However, in the Fianna Fáil victory at the 1932 general election, it won no new seats in Galway. All five sitting Fianna Fáil TDs stood for re election, but the party ran a total of seven candidates in the constituency and Killilea was one of the two sitting TDs to lose their seats to party colleagues. He was re elected the following year, displacing Cumann na nGaedheal's Joseph Mongan. Killilea was then re elected at all the eight general elections in the next 28 years, switching to the new Galway East constituency when the county's parliamentary representation was split at the 1937 election, and choosing Galway North after a further constituency revision for the 1948 general election.

In 1958 Killilea and his wife fostered Anne Silke, a former resident of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Before she died Anne Silke gave evidence reported in the 2021 documentary Untold Secrets produced by Nova Productions and directed by Basque filmmaker Teresa Lavina that she was beaten and abused while in the family's care and used as little more than a slave. Silke alleged she was physically assaulted by the late Mark Killilea Jnr. She also alleged she was sexually assaulted by another son in the family.