Cornelius O'Leary

Cornelius O'Leary (30 September 1927 – 7 September 2006) was an Irish historian and political scientist.

O'Leary was born in Limerick but was raised in Cork, where he attended University College Cork, gaining a first-class honours degree in history and Latin in 1949. He subsequently studied for a DPhil at Nuffield College, Oxford as the first student to be supervised by the psephologist David Butler. While researching his PhD, he worked at a number of secondary schools in London.

His thesis was published as The Elimination of Corrupt Practices in British Elections, 1868-1911 (Clarendon Press, 1962) and in the same year he was appointed lecturer at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. and explained that, when he was appointed in 1960, he saw Queen's as part of the Unionist establishment. In his later life, he served as the vice-chairman of the anti-abortion campaign surrounding the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which introduced a constitutional ban on abortion. This brought him into opposition with many feminists.

O'Leary died on 7 September 2006 after a short illness. He is buried at Timoleague Abbey Cemetery in County Cork.