Peter Paul O'Dwyer (June 29, 1907 – June 23, 1998) was an Irish-born American politician and civil rights lawyer who served as President of the New York City Council during 1974–1977. He was the younger brother of Mayor William O'Dwyer, and the father of New York State Gaming Commission Chair

Brian O'Dwyer Brian O'Dwyer (born October 10, 1945) is an American lawyer, activist, and active member of the Irish-American community. O'Dwyer currently serves as the Chair of the New York State Gaming Commission and a member of the Commission on Presidential S ...

Education and career

Paul O'Dwyer was born in Bohola,

County Mayo County Mayo (; ga, Contae Mhaigh Eo, meaning "Plain of the yew trees") is a county in Ireland. In the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Counci ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

, and in 1925 emigrated to

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He was educated at

Fordham University Fordham University () is a private Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its original campus is located, Fordham is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit un ...

and St. John's Law School, and became a United States citizen in 1931. Active in local Irish-American organizations as a young man, O'Dwyer had a law practice in downtown Brooklyn while his brother William served as the borough's magistrate. In the late 1930s, O'Dwyer was the chairman of the Downtown Brooklyn Community Council. When his brother became Kings County District Attorney in 1940, Paul O'Dwyer moved his law practice from Brooklyn to Manhattan, saying, "I do not wish to be representing a defendant when my brother is in charge of the prosecution." Prior to

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the ...

, O'Dwyer was a vehement opponent of American involvement in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. As chairman of the American Friends of Irish Neutrality, he traveled the United States to speak with and rally pro-neutrality (particularly Irish-American) groups. Some of O'Dwyer's more renowned legal cases were those involving people accused of

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

activities. Active in the National Lawyers Guild, he became its president in 1947 and served on its national board from 1948 to 1951. He supported both constitutionalist and

Irish republican Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate. The developm ...

initiatives. His influence protected several

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief th ...

gunmen from deportation, including "The Fort Worth Five" and Vincent Conlon. O'Dwyer supported the illegal transportation of weapons to Palestine in the 1940s and to Northern Ireland in the 1970s, and admitted knowledge of such smuggling routes. He considered the transportation of arms to be an acceptable form of smuggling and compared it to the smuggling of narcotics. O'Dwyer publicly opposed library censorship of books by leftists, defended labor union leaders and alleged anarchists, supported the left-wing American Labor Party, challenged racial segregation in New York housing and on Wall Street, fought for the creation of Israel, organized Black voters in the South, represented striking Kentucky coal miners, argued for the rights of mainland Puerto Rican voters before the U.S. Supreme Court, sued New York City to keep transit fares low, and led an April 1969 antiwar march of tens of thousands of protesters from

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...

. O'Dwyer's downtown Manhattan law office famously served as the resting place of the acerbic writer

Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhap ...

, whose ashes were kept in a filing cabinet there for decades. Active in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

politics, O'Dwyer ran for political office several times. In 1948, he narrowly lost an election for the U.S. House of Representatives seat on Manhattan's

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

to the Republican incumbent

Jacob K. Javits Jacob Koppel Javits ( ; May 18, 1904 – March 7, 1986) was an American lawyer and politician. During his time in politics, he represented the state of New York in both houses of the United States Congress. A member of the Republican Party, he a ...

. O'Dwyer's two general election victories took place in city elections. He was elected to the city council from an at-large seat representing all of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

for a term from 1963 to 1965. In 1973, O'Dwyer won election to the position of New York City Council President, which was then one of three citywide elected positions. He served in that capacity from 1974 to 1977. However, in 1965, O'Dwyer ran for mayor but finished a distant fourth in the Democratic primary won by

Abe Beame Abraham David Beame (March 20, 1906February 10, 2001) was the 104th mayor of New York City from 1974 to 1977. As mayor, he presided over the city during its fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s, when the city was almost forced to declare bankruptcy. ...

. In

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * J ...

, in opposition to U.S. involvement in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

and with the support of presidential candidate

Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...

, O'Dwyer ran in the Democratic Party primary for U.S. Senator from New York and surprised observers with an upset victory. Again he found his candidacy opposing popular

Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa * Republican Party (Liberia) *Republican Party ...

incumbent Jacob Javits and again O'Dwyer lost in the general election. In 1970, he ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senator against Ted Sorensen, Richard Ottinger and Max McCarthy, but was defeated by Ottinger. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate that was won by

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 and served as a ...

in 1976. In 1986, Manhattan Borough President

Andrew Stein Andrew Stein (born Andrew J. Finkelstein; March 4, 1945) is an American Democratic politician who served on the New York City Council and was its last president, and as Manhattan Borough President. Early life Stein's father, Jerry Finkelstein ...

appointed O'Dwyer the Manhattan Borough Historian.

Personal life

O'Dwyer was the youngest of eleven siblings. His eldest brother was New York City Mayor William O'Dwyer, who was 17 years his senior. The O'Dwyers were maternal uncles of lawyer and activist Frank Durkan. Paul was married for 45 years to Kathleen (Rohan) O'Dwyer. Their son Brian is a

lawyer. O'Dwyer's second wife was attorney Patricia (Hanrahan) O'Dwyer. Paul O'Dwyer died six days before his 91st birthday in 1998.

References

External links

Paul O'Dwyer Papers
at Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University Special Collections {{DEFAULTSORT:Odwyer, Paul 1907 births 1998 deaths 20th-century American politicians 20th-century Irish people Irish emigrants to the United States Irish republicans New York City Council members New York (state) Democrats People from Brooklyn Politicians from County Mayo American civil rights lawyers People with acquired American citizenship Activists from New York (state) Catholics from New York (state) Historians of New York City