This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Lawrence William White. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 22 September 1910, Ireland
Died: 17 December 1991
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Catherine Keohane, Kay Keohane-O’Riordan
O’Riordan, Catherine (‘Kay’) (née Keohane) (1910–91), communist, was born 22 September 1910 on Convent Rd, Clonakilty, Co. Cork, fourth child among four daughters and three sons of Laurence Keohane , stonemason, originally from Ballintemple, Darrara, near Clonakilty, and Julianna Keohane (née O’Regan), a native of Bealad, Sam’s Cross, Co. Cork. Both her parents were evicted as children with their respective families from tenant farms during the 1880s land war. Her maternal grandfather subsequently established himself as an egg dealer in Clonakilty; the family firm survives as Shannonvale Foods. Her father, a native Irish speaker and literate in the language, was a lifelong Labour party supporter who abhorred civil war divisions. After receiving primary and secondary education at the Mercy convent, Clonakilty, Kay became a civil servant, working in the Department of Social Welfare in Cork, Clonmel, and Dublin, and in the civil aviation section of the Department of Industry and Commerce, retiring in 1946 owing to the ban on married women. She married (November 1946) at Rathmines catholic church, Dublin, Michael O’Riordan, a socialist and trade-union activist in Cork city; honeymooning in England, they visited Irish republicans incarcerated in Parkhurst prison for their participation in the 1939 IRA bombing campaign. Moving from Cork to Dublin in February 1947, they settled at 37 Victoria St., South Circular Rd, Portobello; they had two daughters (the eldest of whom died in infancy) and one son.
Inspired by the socially radical and republican traditions of her native west Cork, O’Riordan was a founding member of the communist Irish Workers’ League (IWL) (1947), of which her husband was the prime organiser, and remained a committed communist throughout her life. Also a devout and practising catholic, she argued steadfastly both with communists who queried her religious convictions, and with catholics who challenged her politics. After enduring bruising encounters with priests in many Dublin parishes, she found a sympathetic confessor in Whitefriars St. Carmelite church. Although her political sympathy with the USSR was not uncritical (for example, she criticised suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising), she was an active member of the Irish–Soviet Friendship Society and the subsequent Ireland–USSR Society. Strenuously opposed to all forms of anti-Semitism, she participated in the cultural activities of the Irish Jewish Museum, located in the ‘little Jerusalem’ neighbourhood of Dublin close to her home. Active in the anti-apartheid movement, and in various campaigns to improve social conditions and assert civil rights, she was involved in literacy programmes for children in deprived areas, and assisted refugees in Ireland from the Pinochet regime in Chile. A member of Conradh na Gaeilge, she reared her children as Irish speakers. An accomplished singer and Irish harpist, she performed at the Abbey theatre and broadcast on Radio Éireann, and belonged to both Cairde na Cruite and the Music Association of Ireland. Her involvement with the Goethe Institute reflected her interest in German language, music, and culture. She had numerous personal friends among activists, scholars, and literati associated with socialist and anti-imperialist movements in Ireland and internationally, the Irish republican movement, and Irish cultural activities; she conducted a significant correspondence over many years with Sean O’Casey. She was the subject of two portraits (1943) by Italian artist Gaetano de Gennaro. She died 17 December 1991 at the Meath hospital, Dublin; the funeral was from Whitefriars St. church to Glasnevin crematorium.
Her husband, Michael (‘Mick’) O’Riordan (1917–2006), a native of Cork city, defied his commanding officers in Na Fianna Éireann to enlist in the republican XV (International) Brigade in the Spanish civil war, in which he was wounded. He wrote a book, Connolly Column (1979; new extended edition, 2005), about the Irish who fought on the republican side in Spain. Interned in the Curragh camp during three years of the emergency (1940–43), he worked as a bus conductor in Cork (1943–7) and Dublin (1947–62). The leading figure from the mid 1940s in the communist movement in the south of Ireland, he was general secretary of the IWL (1947–62), and full-time general secretary of its successor, the Irish Workers’ Party (1962–70), until its reconstitution as the Communist Party of Ireland, of which he was general secretary (1970–83) and national chairman (1983–97). Their son, Manus O’Riordan (b. 1949), became a research officer with the ITGWU (1979–90), and from 1990 head of research and chief economist with SIPTU; their daughter, Brenda O’Riordan (b. 1952) became a teacher of French, Irish, and German.