Michael O'Brien

Michael O'Brien (27 September 1933 – 22 April 2025) was an Irish politician who was a councillor and mayor of Clonmel. He was also a survivor of abuse at Ferryhouse and came to national prominence through his campaigning on this subject. When he was eight years old, his mother died and he and his siblings were taken into care. He was detained in this industrial school for eight years

Advocacy O'Brien became a campaigner for the rights of those who had been put in industrial schools in 1999 when he went public with his own experiences, founding the lobby group Right to Peace.

Appearance on Questions and Answers O'Brien was in the audience for Questions and Answers on 25 May 2009 when he confronted Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey about the way the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse had treated survivors of the industrial schools, pointing out that the allegedly non-adversarial process had involved him being accused of lying.

Personal life and death While O'Brien was a Catholic, he rarely went to church.