McCann, James (1840–1904), stockbroker and politician, was born in May 1840 in Toomes, Co. Louth, the second child of the four sons and five daughters of James McCann, a farmer, and his wife, Dorothea (née Hickey), both of Co. Louth. The family moved to Channon Rock, Co. Louth, soon after his birth. He was educated at the Christian Brothers, Drogheda, and subsequently became a clerk in the office of the Drogheda Steampacket Company. From the age of seventeen he worked for the Hibernian Bank in College Green, Dublin, and ten years later he entered the Dublin stock exchange, where he achieved considerable success. His career was further boosted by a thriving partnership with Richard Naish, and their firm became well known throughout the city. The partnership was dissolved in 1895 and McCann continued the business independently until 1902, when he was joined by his son.
McCann's business acumen found a new direction in pursuing the economic revival of rural Ireland. In 1878 he bought Simmonscourt Castle in Donnybrook, and in the 1890s he acquired extensive property in Co. Meath, including the former Russell estate and a substantial part of Navan town. He established a model estate at Telltown, and built a bacon factory, a furniture factory, and a sawmills at Navan. The business potential of these innovative enterprises was inhibited by the inadequacy of transport systems, and McCann became a vigorous advocate of the commercial use of canals as a cheaper alternative to railway transport. He was elected as member (1891) and highly effective chairman (1892) of the Grand Canal Company, and in 1900 was returned as an independent nationalist MP for St Stephen's Green, Dublin. Shrewd in business, he was an idealistic and active politician who counted Alice Stopford Green (qv) as a friend and adviser. He was sympathetic to home rule, which he believed would be conducive to his economic policies, but was concerned mainly with transport, tillage, and the taxation of small farmers. With these interests in mind, he founded the Irish Peasant, a Navan newspaper, and installed P. D. Kenny (qv) as editor (the paper survived until December 1906, when it was closed by McCann's widow following clashes between the editor and the clergy).
McCann died 16 February 1904 suddenly from pneumonia. He and his wife had three sons and a daughter. He was remembered as a generous and sociable man and a devout catholic. Papers, including a copy of his address to the Banker's Institute of Ireland (‘The economics of the Irish problem’, November 1900), are held in UCD and in the NLI.