O'Connor (Ó Conchobhair), Seán (1910–87), civil servant, was born 31 January 1910 in Upper Main St., Dingle, Co. Kerry, elder of two children of Thomas O'Connor of Dingle; his mother was an O'Herlihy from Annascaul. Educated at CBS, Dingle, and St Brendan's College, Killarney, he joined the civil service in 1931 and (except for three years in the Department of Supplies during the second world war) spent his career in the Department of Education, where he was appointed a principal officer in the primary branch (1956), assistant secretary (1965), and secretary (1973). He was among a number of civil servants promoted to senior posts in the department in the late 1950s who sought to enhance the policy-making role of the minister for education. Radical reforms in primary and secondary education were introduced in the 1960s, based principally on the OECD report Investment in education (1965); one of its recommendations was the establishment of a development branch in the department. O'Connor was put in charge of this branch when it was formed in November 1965, but his appointment has been criticised by educationists who felt that as ‘a career civil servant . . . he lacked the firm background in educational studies which the Investment in education team had envisaged’ (Mulcahy & O'Sullivan, 267). As head of the development branch he was an important figure in shaping and implementing most of the educational reforms of the late 1960s and early 1970s (especially the introduction of community schools and the establishment of regional technical colleges), and believed in the need for technological as well as academic higher education. An admirer of Donogh O'Malley (qv), he was a strong supporter of the scheme to merge UCD and TCD proposed in 1967. However he was dismayed at O'Malley's insistence on introducing free secondary school education by September 1967. He opposed the scheme, arguing that it should be means-tested, and then tried to persuade O'Malley to delay its introduction until 1970 when it could be combined with the raising of the age of compulsory school attendance. He later praised O'Malley's foresight and admitted that he and other officials who had opposed the move were wrong.
In the autumn 1968 edition of Studies he published an article, ‘Post-primary education: now and in the future’, in which he introduced the idea of community schools, highlighting the need for amalgamation and rationalisation of smaller schools. This article, which has been described as ‘a landmark in Irish education marking the publication of a new approach to educational development by the Department of Education’ (Randles, 290), was criticised as anti-clerical and representing ‘nationalisation by stealth’ (Studies (autumn 1968), 281) because of his criticism of the catholic church's opposition to co-education and the inferior role of lay teachers in religious schools, and his desire to have religious as ‘partners, not always as masters’ (ibid., 249) in secondary schools. It was also considered to represent a significant increase in state control over education, and resulted in bad relations between the department and religious orders. In 1969 O'Connor travelled throughout the country organising public meetings to explain his Studies proposals. His efforts to introduce greater regional control of education and schools were less successful. Promoted to secretary of the Department of Education in 1973, he retired in 1975 and became chairman of the Higher Education Authority, which had been established in 1972 to coordinate and develop higher education. Unhappy in the HEA, where he felt he was not taken seriously because he did not have a university degree, he resigned in 1979. In 1986 he published A troubled sky: reflections on the Irish educational scene, 1957–1968, in which he traced the changes in Irish education during the period and gave his own opinions on education. From this book it is clear that the education ministers whom he most admired as reformers were Donogh O'Malley, Patrick Hillery, Jack Lynch (qv), and his close friend George Colley (qv).
Outside his civil service career he was noted as an actor, writer, and producer in Irish, and in politics held strong republican views. A supporter of the Irish language, he always used the Irish version of his name, although the English version was used for official purposes. He was also interested in the classics and his main hobbies were hill-walking and gardening. He married first Niamh, daughter of Seán Mac Gearailt and Máire Ní Cinnéide, who died in childbirth, and secondly Mairín Kent, niece of Éamonn Ceannt (qv). He had one son from his first marriage and a son and two daughters from his second. He lived at Dunross, Roebuck Road, Dublin, and died 17 March 1987 in Dublin.