Rita O'Hare

Rita O'Hare ( McCulloch; 13 January 1943 – 3 March 2023) was the general secretary of Sinn Féin, and from 1998 to 2023 the party's representative to the United States.

Early life She was born Rita McCulloch on 13 January 1943 in Belfast to a Protestant father, Billy from East Belfast and his wife Maureen, a Catholic from the Nationalist Short Strand area. Her father worked in the linen mills and was also a member of the Communist Party.

She married Gerry O’Hare in 1960 aged 17 after finishing her education at St Dominic’s Grammar School on Falls Road. They had three children and divorced in the early 1990s. Her second husband was Brendan Brownlee, a republican from Belfast with whom she had a fourth child. She stated that she fled South because she and her family received a death threat from another British soldier.

Her husband Gerry was released from Long Kesh internment camp, joined her in the south, where he was imprisoned on paramilitary charges.

Her extradition from the Republic of Ireland was blocked as the Irish High Court ruled in March 1978 that O'Hare should not be extradited to Northern Ireland, on the grounds that the offences that she was alleged to have committed fell within the political offence exception.

Sinn Fein activity and later life She was the editor of the Irish republican newspaper An Phoblacht ("Republican News") from 1985 to 1990 and became director of publicity for Sinn Féin in 1990.

Rita O'Hare became close friends with Jean Kennedy Smith who served as the US ambassador to Ireland from 1993 to 1998 and played a significant role in the peace process. After having to turn down an opportunity to speak at an event in New York in 1998 due to being “on the run”; Jean Kennedy Smith helped secure her a visa.