O'Malley, Kevin F. (Kevin Francis), 1947-

<p>On July 29, 2014, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the nomination of Kevin F. O’Malley to be ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, a post that has been vacant since 2012. The nomination now awaits approval from the full Senate. O’Malley, an attorney in St. Louis, is a longtime supporter of President Barack Obama.</p>

<p>O’Malley has strong Irish roots; all four of his grandparents were born in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland. O’Malley was born in St. Louis and grew up there, but attended high school at St. Vincent’s Seminary in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, with the intent of entering the priesthood. Instead, he returned home and attended Saint Louis University, earning a B.A. in 1970, taking a break in 1968 to serve as a community ambassador in Prague, Czechslovakia. O’Malley earned a J.D. from the Saint Louis University’s law school in 1973. He also served for a time as an officer in the Army Reserve.</p>

<p>After earning his law degree, O’Malley was a special attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Department of Justice and in 1979 was named an assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis.</p>

<p>O’Malley went into private practice in 1983, focusing on defending medical professionals against malpractice claims, but also representing defendants in cases involving foreign trade and securities issues. O’Malley served as an instructor in the American Bar Association’s Central and Eastern European Law Initiative, first in Moscow in 1996 and then in Warsaw in 1999. In 1998, he helped write the nine-volume Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, still a standard reference manual for judges and trial lawyers.</p>

<p>O’Malley worked for his own firm until 2003 and then joined Greensfelder, Hemker and Gale in St. Louis. In 2004, he secured a huge defense verdict in a medical negligence case and the following year successfully defended a pharmaceutical executive in a Medicare kickback trial.</p>

<p>In 2009, O’Malley was appointed by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) to be the only non-physician on the Missouri Board of Registration for the Healing Arts, the medical licensing board in the state. The appointment was criticized in some quarters because of the belief that O’Malley’s status as a malpractice defense attorney would cause him to defend physicians whose fitness to hold a license was questioned.</p>

<p>O’Malley worked as an adjunct professor of law at St. Louis University School of Law from 1979 to 1985 and at Washington University School of Law in 2013-2014.</p>

<p>O’Malley has strong ties to the Democratic Party, campaigned for Obama in 2008 and was on the credentials committee for the Democratic Convention that year in Denver. He was part of a group that fought to have the party’s 2012 convention held in St. Louis, but the effort was unsuccessful, with the event being staged in Charlotte, North Carolina.</p>

<p>In his confirmation hearing, O’Malley was asked about his position on the release of information from the Boston College Belfast History Project on the Northern Ireland conflict. Many participants from both sides of “The Troubles” were asked to talk about their role in the fighting for the project, with the proviso that the interviews would be made public only upon the participant’s death. However, the British government sought some of the interviews via a treaty obligation and some information was turned over to Britain. Although the disclosures have caused some participants to be arrested, O’Malley said he didn’t think the disclosures would harm the still-sensitive peace process.</p>

<p>Until being nominated for the Dublin post, O’Malley held dual Irish and American citizenship, but gave up his Irish citizenship to accept the ambassadorial position. O’Malley and his wife, Dena, have two sons, Brendan and Ryan.</p>

<p>Kevin Francis O'Malley (born May 12, 1947) is an American lawyer and diplomat who was the United States Ambassador to Ireland from 2014 to 2017.</p>

<p>Kevin O'Malley is a second generation Irish American, with dual citizenship of the United States and Ireland until returning Irish citizenship in order to become ambassador. He has Irish ancestry on both sides of his family, and his paternal grandparents came from Westport, County Mayo.</p>

<p>O'Malley is a Catholic, and attended St. Vincent's Seminary at second level in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and the novitiate at St. Mary's Seminary in Perryville, Missouri, where he studied for the priesthood. O'Malley received an A.B. in 1970 from Saint Louis University and a J.D. in 1973 from Saint Louis University School of Law.</p>

<p>He has been an active member of the Democratic Party in Missouri, and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough described O'Malley as a "close personal friend" of US President Barack Obama. He was previously an officer in the United States Army Reserve.</p>

<p>O'Malley was a Special Attorney of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, California and Phoenix, Arizona from 1974 to 1979 and was an Assistant United States Attorney in St. Louis, Missouri from 1979 to 1983. During his tenure as a federal prosecutor, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the United States Attorney General.</p>

<p>O'Malley served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School of Law from 1979 to 1985, where he previously studied, and as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Washington University School of Law in 2013 and 2014.</p>

<p>He was a legal instructor for the American Bar Association Central and East European Law Initiative (ABA CEELI) in Moscow, Russia in 1996 and Warsaw, Poland in 1999. In 1968, he had served as a Community Ambassador in Prague, Czechoslovakia.</p>

<p>In 2009, Governor of Missouri Jay Nixon appointed O'Malley to the Missouri Board of Healing Arts, the state's regulatory and disciplinary body for physicians, becoming its only non-physician member, and the physicians subsequently elected him as Board President.</p>

<p>He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers (ACTL), and a nationally recognised author of a treatise on jury instructions that is used in federal jury trials throughout the United States. He has been consistently chosen by the editors of The Best Lawyers in America for his work in medical negligence defence and white collar criminal defences.</p>

<p>O'Malley was a trial lawyer in the Litigation Department at Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C. in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a partner, until resigning in order to become a US Ambassador. In 2013, he received the Award of Honor of The Lawyers Association of St. Louis.</p>

<p>On June 5, 2014, O'Malley was nominated by President Obama for the position of US Ambassador of Ireland. Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, immediately threw her support behind O'Malley, as did Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said that O'Malley would bring "a strong knowledge of the role of the religious and cultural underpinnings, and the very important foreign policy and national security undergirdings" of the relationship between the United States and Ireland. The appointment of O'Malley was approved by the Irish Government. On July 15, 2014, O'Malley underwent his first confirmation hearing before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He was unanimously approved by the committee.</p>

<p>On September 18, 2014, the US Senate voted on O'Malley's appointment and he was confirmed in a simple vote. O'Malley was then officially appointed by President Obama, and sworn in by Vice President Biden on September 30, 2014. He presented his credentials to Irish President Michael D. Higgins on October 8, 2014, taking up residency nearby in the Deerfield Residence in the Phoenix Park.</p>

<p>On November 8, 2016, the day of the US presidential election, he made a speech at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin where he said "regardless of who our next president is in January, America's relationship with Ireland will remain strong because of the exceptional ties that already exist between our two countries." O'Malley served until January 20, 2017, the date of the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.</p>