This Eileen O’Mara Walsh Memoir — The Third Daughter : A Retrospective — is an intimate and conversational account of the personal and professional life of one of Ireland’s best-known business women.
O’Mara Walsh’s achievements include stints chairing the board of Great Southern Hotels (1984-1999) and the Irish state agency Forbairt (1993-1998) as well as founding the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation in the mid-1980s.
Born in Limerick in the early 1940s, O’Mara Walsh was the daughter of a War of Independence verteran, Power O’Mara and his English socialist wife, Joan Follwell.
Follwell, who features strongly in the early chapters of The Third Daughter, was a protegée of the British philosopher Bertrand Russell and would have a lasting influence on her daughter’s life:
“When I think of my parents, my mother always comes first to mind and is still a constant commentator, mentor and arbiter against whose taste, judgment, beliefs and prejudices I measure both myself and the world around me.”
Power O’Mara, the son of an operatic tenor, came from a wealthy merchant family in Limerick but the family’s wealth had diminished and, in 1953, he moved the family from Limerick to Dublin.
In the 1950s, Dublin was home to a cast of colourful characters such as the writer Brendan Behan, poet Patrick Kavanagh and artist Seán O’Sullivan. O’Mara Walsh’s memoir shows how she encountered them all — and many others — in the city pubs. Her lifestyle was bohemian and she enjoyed remarkable freedom as a young girl and developed an affinity for the arts that would remain with her throughout her life.
Love interests
At 18, she moved to London to work and subsequently lived in Paris. There she recounts details of her love interests including a significant relationship with the French artist, Pierre Catzeflis.
But for all that her personal life was colourful, it is her business life that produces some of the best anecdotes in this O’Mara Walsh memoir. For example, she tells how shortly after she established her company, O’Mara Travel, a French travel agent asked her to put together the itinerary for a garden tour in Ireland. It transpired that the tour was for the Garden Club of Monaco and included in the party was none other than Princess Grace. O’Mara Walsh recounts an hilarious anecdote about some formally attired dignitaries gatecrashing an informal evening of Irish music and dinner attended by Prince Rainier and Princess Grace at the Abbey Tavern in Howth.
Politicians too make an appearance among the colourful cast. Charles Haughey turns up in Chapter 24 along with Ruari Quinn and Des O’Malley but it’s an HR executive from one of the large accountancy firms who provoked the sharpest response. O’Mara Walsh — then Board Chairman of Great Southern Hotels — had engaged the firm to hire a Chief Executive and the HR executive made the mistake of calling her ‘love’
“You may call me Eileen, Ms O’ Mara Walsh or even Madam Chairman, but never again address me by ‘love’.
Throughout her adult life, O’Mara Walsh’s most significant personal relationship was with the Irish artist Owen Walsh with whom she had a son. Although their relationship ended, they remained close and she writes movingly of caring for him in the weeks leading up to his death in June 2002. The memoir closes with his passing.
The Third Daughter : A Retrospective by Eileen O’Mara Walsh is published by Lilliput Press. [Disclosure: a copy was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.]