Cormac O'Malley: Memory Keeper
Portrait of Cormac O'Malley
From the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, Notre Dame University.
Cormac O’Malley, who was raised in Newport, Co. Mayo, is the son of Ernie O’Malley, Irish nationalist and author of the autobiographical memoirs, Cormac’s mother was Helen Hooker, an accomplished American artist from Connecticut. After Cormac’s father died when he was 14, Cormac moved to the USA to live with his mother and two siblings.
After attending Harvard College, serving with the U.S. Navy in the Western Pacific, and completing Columbia Law School, Cormac worked for 10 years in an international law firm on Wall Street. He then practiced as an international corporate lawyer for twenty years posted to Mexico, Brussels, London and New York. Upon retiring in 1999, Cormac served as an international legal consultant concentrating on American investment in Ireland. He continues to publish and preserve his family’s remarkable legacy and their contributions to Irish and American history and the arts.
From the time Cormac wrote his Harvard thesis on Irish history, he has maintained a vibrant interest in Irish matters particularly the arts and history. He has been custodian of his father’s exceptional archives and collections and has served on boards of several Irish-related charities. In more recent years, Cormac has been President of the Board of Advisors at Glucksman Ireland House, New York University’s Centre for Irish and Irish American Studies, and on multiple other boards and committees including the Irish American Cultural Institute (IACI) in New Jersey and the American Friends of the Arts in Ireland (AFAI).
Cormac has helped preserve his father’s literary and historical image by editing and republishing his earlier well-known works. In recent years Cormac has co-edited No Surrender Here: The Civil War Papers of Ernie O’Malley, 1922-1924, regarding his father’s role in the Irish Civil War, edited Broken landscapes: Selected Letters of Ernie O’Malley, 1924-1957, a newly discovered memoir by his father, and co-edited Broken Landscapes, Selected Letters of Ernie O’Malley, 1922-1924. Cormac also embarked on a multi-volume series of his father’s military interviews with survivors of Ireland’s War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, entitled The Men Will Talk to Me for which he co-edited volumes on Kerry, Galway, and Mayo. West Cork (2015) and Clare (2016) have been edited by others. In 2015 he co-edited Western Ways, a book of photographs taken by his parents in County Mayo during the 1930s. His most recent book as editor, is Modern Ireland and Revolution, Ernie O’Malley in Context (Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 2016). He has contributed to multiple books, articles, workshops, videos, documentaries and films.
Cormac has given his father’s non-nationalist papers to New York University’s Archives of Irish America and Ernie O’Malley’s nationalist papers to the University College Dublin Archives. He also consulted with Jerry O’Callaghan on the making of the 2008 documentary on his father’s life.
Cormac curated an exhibition called “Sculptured Lives” of his mother’s sculpture, painting and photography at the Irish Consulate in New York and later at Boston College in 2009-2010. In 2012 he curated an exhibition on “Art and Revolution: The Life of Ernie O’Malley” at Tamiment Library in NYU. In 2014 he participated in the Ernie O’Malley Symposium on Modern Ireland and Revolution at NYU. He has also written articles for Irish Arts Review, New Hibernian Review and lectured on many campuses.
Cormac now lives and works in Stonington, Connecticut.