Summer school to honour Tip

The memory of ‘Tip’ O’Neill continues to live on in his ancestral home of Mallow with a summer school planned for 2021.

The inaugural Tip O'Neill International Summer School was due to take place this year but due to Covid-19, the event has been rearranged for next year.

Thomas Phillip ‘Tip’ O'Neill Jr was an Irish-American politician who served as the 47th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987, representing northern Boston, Massachusetts, as a Democrat from 1953 to 1987.

Michael O’Neill, a relative of Tip and President of the Tip O'Neill International Summer School, said that event will strengthen the Irish bridge between the United States of America and Europe.

He said: “The Tip O’Neill International Summer School will aim to imbue the life and times of Tip O’Neill from the time of his initial political engagement in campaigning for Al Smith in the 1928 Presidential campaign, his New Deal philosophy, his achievements as an elected public representative and speaker of the House of Representatives, his quest throughout his life for equality and fairness and, last but not least, his and other Irish Americans commitment and contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland and the maintenance of good relations between Ireland and the United States.”

He continued: “The school will set out to define itself as an evolving Irish bridge that will span Ireland’s historic connections with Europe and from the time of its New World connection with the United States that initially became a melting pot of all European peoples. It will, through its global Irish emigrant and diaspora network seek and explore avenues to be a progressive and active medium of reconnecting the USA with its Irish and European roots."

Patrick O’Neill, one of five children, was born in Mallow to John and Johanna in 1832. He was Tip O'Neill's grandfather. Tip’s maternal grandparents were Eunice Fullerton from Sleidrin, Buncrana and James Tolan from Inishowen, county Donegal.