Thomas P. O'Neill III

Thomas P. O’Neill III was born in 1945 and is the eldest son and namesake of the former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and outspoken liberal Democrat, Tip O'Neill, who served as Speaker from 1977 to 1987.

Thomas himself is a former Massachusetts State Representative and subsequently Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. He now works in public relations in Boston as CEO of O’Neill and Associates.  Thomas O’Neill is a member of the Board of Trustees for Boston College. He is also on the US Board of Ireland’s National Theatre, the Abbey. 

O’Neill received a Bachelor’s Degree from Boston College and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard.  He maintains and develops close contact and links with Donegal through his involvement with the Tip O’Neill Irish Diaspora Award.  This award was created in recognition of the O’Neill family’s maternal ancestral links with Inishowen in Co. Donegal.

 In September 2012 O’Neill travelled to Inishowen with his sisters and brother and eighty members of the extended O’Neill clan to celebrate the centenary of Tip O’Neill, their Donegal connections and to attend the unveiling of a statue commemorating his father on the Buncrana seafront. 

Later in the year then Mayor of Donegal, Frank McBrearty travelled to Boston to participate at Centenary events to celebrate the life and legacy of Tip O'Neill through the interest and work of his son Thomas O’Neill.