O'Connor describes participating in a Saint Patrick's Day parade in Providence, Rhode Island as a key moment in his coming to political consciousness: "I walked in the procession, and in the emotion I felt, walking as one of that vast crowd of Irish emigrants celebrating our national festival, I awoke to full consciousness of my love for my country.

[2] O'Connor joined the Gaelic League in 1900, through which he came into contact with many of the future leaders of the independence movement, including Tom Clarke and Seán Mac Diarmada.

During this period, O'Connor describes being asked by Clarke's widow to preserve writings on the wall of that house, which she held to be her husband's last message: 'We had to evacuate the GPO.

O'Connor reconnected with members of the Keating Branch of the Gaelic League at 46 Parnell Square and took part in the re-organising of the fragmented IRB.

O'Connor was involved with the revolutionary Sinn Féin party during the time of the First Dáil, handling money and hiding documents for Michael Collins.

In 5 Mespil Road, Collins' headquarters for over 15 months during the Irish War of Independence, O'Connor fitted a small cupboard in the woodwork beneath the kitchen stairs on the ground floor.

[12] Ironically, it was O'Connor that had built the false wall in Nell Humphreys' house in Ballsbridge behind which IRA Assistant Chief of Staff Ernie O'Malley found refuge.

[14] He retained his seat at the next four general elections, joining Fine Gael when Cumann na nGaedheal merged in 1933 with the National Centre Party and the Blueshirts.

Peadar O'Donnell remarked bitterly that it "was written in the strain of a garrulous war-widow who struts around in her old man's war medals, full of sighs and sidelong glances.