It’s the gig not everyone wants to go to, but one enthusiastic Maga seanadóir was very keen to get to Washington next week to see Donald Trump at the annual shamrock ceremony.
Best of luck to Independent senator Sharon Keogan. We see she dispatched a letter to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue headed “Pro-Maga Irish Politicians – Request for invitation to the White House on St Patrick’s Day”.
She writes: “By way of introduction, my name is Sharon Keogan. I am a member of the Senate of Ireland and I have publicly endorsed US President Donald Trump during his 2024 campaign on my social media and celebrated his victory on the floor of the Irish senate.”
She doesn’t specify what form this celebration took. Maybe she took to the floor and danced, Trump style, to 1970s gay disco classic and Maga rally favourite YMCA. Whatever it was, it passed us by.
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Like a number of her colleagues in the Upper House, she congratulated the new US president after his election in November.
“I will start off by congratulating President Donald Trump on his win. The people have spoken and President Trump is their choice. This should be a wake-up call for Ireland’s politicians with regard to pushing agendas that are not in the best interests of the Irish people” she said.
“Rising inflation, the cost of living, homelessness, crime-ridden cities, dereliction, drug-infested areas and no-go cities are just some of the many issues that resonated with voters in the United States. Are we any different here? Patriotism will always win over globalism when the political system does not work for its citizens.”
Anyway, back to her shamrock plea.
“Now that President Trump has had the most successful comeback of any US politician in American history, I was wondering if you would be able to provide me with an invitation to the White House for the upcoming St Patrick’s Day ceremony?
“I am Irish and Pro-Trump and I wish to communicate that to people in the US, Ireland and across the globe. I believe meeting with President Trump could be very beneficial for helping to build on the relationship between both our nations.”
Perhaps she can go to the Oval Office instead of Micheál Martin, who must be a bag of nerves at this stage with everyone telling him how he should conduct himself at their much-anticipated meeting on Wednesday. Although, unlike President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he’ll be fine on the dress code front.
Our friends in Cork tell us the Taoiseach was “born in a suit”. Apparently, back in the day in University College Cork “when fellas were in army surplus jackets and baggy denims, Micheál was a suit-and-tie teenager”.
However, if the prospect of talking tariffs in the Oval Office proves too daunting, Co Meath’s leading Maga politician, Sharon, would only love to get the gig.
Maybe she can take Mary Lou McDonald’s vacant slot, now that the Sinn Féin leader has announced she will not be attending the shamrock jamboree this year.
Instead of Mary Lou, Donald could welcome Maga-Lou.
Stop press.
Some late news just in: We spoke to Senator Keogan on Friday to find out if her request was successful.
“Yes, I got an invite,” she told us.
Here’s the unfortunate thing. “But I can’t go.”
A diary clash at the beginning of the week has arisen, an appointment she can’t reschedule, which means she will have to stay at home and miss Wednesday’s festivities Stateside.
She is very disappointed.
Who came up with the magic invite? “A senator from the [Republican] party.”
But Sharon is already looking forward to the shamrock ceremony in 2026. “I’m 100 per cent certain I’ll go next year. I’m looking forward to it.”
‘Wall-to-wall cufflinks’ in Seanad Independent Group
Sharon, of course, is a member of the Seanad Independent Group of senators, which is diversity personified.
Some members of the group like to do the old Wokey-Cokey routine for their followers, but it’s a broad church.
Newly elected senators Aubrey McCarthy and Joe Conway have now joined the SIG, making it the largest Opposition group in the Upper House recognised under standing orders. Aubrey is a successful businessman and founder of the Tiglin homelessness and addiction services charity. Joe, a former mayor of Waterford and national school principal, was nominated by Údarás na Gaeltachta. He has beautiful Irish.
With eight members, the group leads Sinn Féin, which has six senators; the cross-party group of Labour/Greens/Soc Dems, with four; and the Civil Engagement group of Independents, which also has four.
The SIG in the Seanad ascendancy are Victor Boyhan (leader), Michael McDowell (whip), Tom Clonan, Gerard Craughwell, Joe Conway, Aubrey McCarthy and Rónán Mullen, with Sharon proving some much needed gender balance among all the men of a certain age.
What’s the group looking like now with the two newbies on board?
“Wall-to-wall cufflinks,” remarked one Government senator.
Joe even wears a pocket watch, which is seriously putting it up to the cufflinked and waistcoated senior counsel McDowell.
Shane Cassells lands on his feet following exit from public life
There was surprise in Fianna Fáil last September when senator Shane Cassells announced he was retiring from politics after 25 years in public life and would not be contesting the next general election.
“I have done 16 years as a councillor and nine years in the Oireachtas as a TD and senator,” he said. “I’m out of public life now. I’ve really enjoyed it. It has been a privilege. But I’m done with public life.”
He had been expected to seek a nomination to stand in the Meath West constituency but told colleagues before the selection convention he no longer had the “huge levels of energy” needed for elected politics. Aisling Dempsey, the daughter of former TD and minister Noel Dempsey was returned for Fianna Fáil in the three-seater.
Three months into the new Government and Shane is back again in Kildare Street having fallen on his feet across the road from Leinster House in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
The former sports journalist has landed a new job as press adviser to Niamh Smyth, the junior minister with responsibility for trade promotion, artificial intelligence and digital transformation.
Niamh from Cavan and Shane from Navan.
As the new Government settles in, Ministers are still staffing up and appointing advisers.
Word in Leinster House this week is that Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan is set to name Suzanne Coogan as his special adviser. She has been working in the public sector in recent years but was a Fianna Fáil press officer and a well-regarded ministerial adviser in an earlier incarnation.
Justice is seen as a difficult ministerial posting but, besides her government experience, Suzanne also holds a master’s degree in criminology, which should come in handy in the cut-throat world of Fianna Fáil politics, and maybe in the department too.
From canvas to canvass: how new TD Barry Heneghan went into politics
New TD Barry Heneghan made quite the debut.
Not backward in coming forward, the 26-year-old from Clontarf found himself immediately in the spotlight as a member of the small Lowry group of programme for government-supporting Independent deputies currently embroiled in the Dáil speaking rights row.
In his first weeks on the job representing Dublin Bay North, the talkative engineering graduate held forth happily whenever a microphone was presented when, perhaps, it might have been wiser to keep his counsel. He seems to be doing a bit more of that now.
It has been a whirlwind few months – from just leaving university and working in his local pub as a barman to winning a seat on Dublin City Council in June and then following up with a seat in the Dáil in November.
How did that happen?
It’s a nice story.
Barry is best mates with the son of Ellie Lanigan, who worked alongside former Independent Alliance minister Finian McGrath as his PA in Leinster House for nearly 20 years.
As a child, Barry would spend hours talking left-wing politics with Ellie, who has a huge interest in Cuba and campaigned for many years against the embargo.
Ellie’s late mother was political activist Phyllis McGhee, who once chained herself to the gates of Leinster House in protest at the contraception ban.
“When Ellie was diagnosed with cancer, I was very upset. So I said to myself: ‘How am going to divert some of this?’ So I did a painting, I did it in a day or two and I dropped it up to her in the Mater. She loved it.”
Finian went to visit Ellie in hospital and saw the picture. Obviously, old leftie that he is, he went misty-eyed at Barry’s painting of Ché Guevara with Dublin’s Poolbeg chimneys in the background.
He had to have one.
It took Barry a lot longer to paint this one as he was working on his thesis. When he dropped over the finished piece, Finian asked him if he was interested in running in the local election. With barely a month to go and Finian “he knows how to do a campaign” doing the organising along with former councillor Damian O’Farrell, he won a council seat.
And then, when three of the sitting TDs in Dublin Bay North said they wouldn’t be running in the general election, the group decided to take a tilt at the Dáil and their man won the last seat in the constituency.
Barry says he doesn’t paint very much and has no formal art training, but his mam is an artist so it must be in the blood. He finds it relaxing but his real interest is in beekeeping. He has “a big red hive” in his parents’ front garden and makes his own honey.
“But I’m very loose with my bees. You can overwork them and take too much honey and there is a risk of the colony dying.”
