Thomas Curran (South Sligo MP)


Thomas Curran was an Irish nationalist politician from County Donegal who served as an anti-Parnellite Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom House of Commons.
He was elected as MP for the Southern division of Sligo at the general election in 1892, and held the seat until the 1900 general election. His son Thomas Bartholomew Curran sat in Parliament for the same period, as MP firstly for Kilkenny City and then for North Donegal.
Both father and son owed their election to the Irish National Federation to whom Thomas senior made an unsecured loan of £10,000 to fund their campaign in the 1892 general election. According to Tim Healy:

Thomas Curran, an hotel-keeper in Sydney, came to our rescue by lending £10,000 without security. Although he was repaid, his generosity deserves remembrance. He was a man by no means sentimentally moulded. When I learnt to know him I thought him of the type least likely to make a sacrifice. We put his son up for the City of Kilkenny, and himself for Sligo, and both were elected.