Fergus Finlay (born 1 June 1950) [1] is the former Chief Executive of the charity Barnardos in Ireland, leaving the post in 2018. He was a senior member of the Irish Labour Party and is also a weekly columnist with the Irish Examiner and the author of a number of books.
Having worked in government press secretarial roles in the 1980s, Finlay served as an adviser to Dick Spring from 1983 to 1997. During this time he was involved in campaigns that led to the election of Mary Robinson as president, a large increase in the number of Labour TDs in 1992 and the dropping of the constitutional ban on divorce in 1996.
He resigned from Labour in 1997, becoming a director of Wilson Hartnell Public Relations, heading the company's public affairs unit. In 1997 he also started presenting the Network 2 show Later On 2 with Frank Dunlop former Press Secretary of Fianna Fáil. In April 2010 the Sunday Business Post said he is "one of the great backroom operators of Irish political history, a strategist, tactician, and media briefer par excellence."
Finlay is also credited with helping to organise the visit of the Special Olympics to Ireland.[ citation needed ]
In 2009, Finlay was listed in 59th place on a list of "most influential people" in Irish society put together for Village magazine. [2]
On 9 September 2010, Finlay announced that he would seek the Labour Party nomination to contest the 2011 Irish presidential election to elect the successor to Mary McAleese as President of Ireland. [3] Michael D. Higgins eventually won that nomination. Finlay congratulated Higgins on his victory, saying he was "looking forward" to Higgins' Presidency. [4]
Finlay was awarded an honorary degree by NUI Galway in 2019.
Jim Duffy is an Irish historian, political commentator, and served as a policy advisor to then Irish leader of the Opposition, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny prior to the 2011 general election. He first achieved prominence in 1990 when the contents of his on-the-record interview with then Tánaiste Brian Lenihan, in which Lenihan admitted making calls to the residence of the Irish president seeking to speak to President Hillery to urge him to refuse a Dáil dissolution in controversial circumstances, led to Lenihan's dismissal from government, his defeat in that year's Irish presidential election and the unexpected election of the left wing liberal Mary Robinson as President of Ireland.
The 1990 Irish presidential election was the tenth presidential election to be held in Ireland, the fifth to be contested by more than one candidate, and the first to have a female candidate and winner. It was held on Wednesday, 7 November 1990 and was won by Mary Robinson on a joint Labour Party and Workers' Party ticket. The election was the first time in history a Fianna Fáil candidate failed to win the Presidency. It was also the first time the Labour Party had contested a Presidential election. The election had one of the tightest margins of victory in Irish Presidential elections history, and the final leg of the campaign was characterised by intense internal turmoil within the Fianna Fáil party as well as personal attacks on the candidates from competing political parties. The election was considered a political failure for the Fine Gael party and would cause their leader, Alan Dukes, to resign in the immediate aftermath.
The 2004 Irish presidential election was scheduled for Friday, 22 October 2004. However, nominations closed at noon on 1 October and the incumbent president, Mary McAleese, who had nominated herself in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, was the only candidate nominated. Accordingly, she was re-elected for a second seven-year term of office without the need to hold an election. This was the third time a president was returned unopposed, following Seán T. O'Kelly in 1952, and Patrick Hillery in 1983. McAleese was inaugurated for her second term on Thursday, 11 November 2004.
Brian Patrick Lenihan was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Tánaiste from 1987 to 1990, Minister for Defence from 1989 to 1990, Minister for Agriculture from March 1982 to December 1982, Minister for Fisheries from 1977 to 1979, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1987 to 1989, 1979 to 1981 and January 1973 to March 1973, Minister for Transport and Power from 1969 to 1973, Minister for Education from 1968 to 1969, Minister for Justice from 1964 to 1969, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Justice and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands from 1961 to 1964. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1961 to 1973 and from 1977 to 1995. He served as a Senator for the Industrial and Commercial Panel from 1957 to 1961 and 1973 to 1977. He also served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Oireachtas from 1973 to 1977.
Noël Christopher Browne was an Irish politician who served as Minister for Health from 1948 to 1951 and Leader of the National Progressive Democrats from 1958 to 1963. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1948 to 1954, 1957 to 1973 and 1977 to 1982. He was a Senator for the Dublin University constituency from 1973 to 1977.
Vincent Browne is an Irish print and broadcast journalist. He is a columnist with The Irish Times and The Sunday Business Post and a non-practising barrister. From 1996 until 2007, he presented a nightly talk-show on RTÉ Radio, Tonight with Vincent Browne, which focused on politics, the proceedings of tribunals on political corruption and police misconduct. From 2007 to 2017 he presented Tonight with Vincent Browne on TV3, which was broadcast from Monday to Thursday at 11:00pm.
Michael Daniel Higgins is an Irish politician, poet, broadcaster and sociologist who has served as the ninth president of Ireland since 2011. Entering national politics through the Labour Party, he served as a senator from 1973 to 1977 having been nominated by the Taoiseach. Elected in 1981 as a Teachta Dála (TD), he represented the Galway West constituency from 1981 to 1982 and 1987 to 2011. Between these terms, he returned to Seanad Éireann from 1983 to 1987 as a senator for the National University. He served as minister for arts, culture and the Gaeltacht from 1993 to 1997 and mayor of Galway from 1981 to 1982 and 1990 to 1991. Higgins was the president of the Labour Party from 2003 to 2011, until he resigned following his election as president of Ireland.
Joe Higgins is an Irish former Socialist Party politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West constituency from 1997 to 2007 and from 2011 to 2016. He served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dublin constituency from 2009 to 2011.
Brian Donal Crowley is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the South constituency from 1994 to 2019. He served as a Senator from 1993 to 1994, after being nominated by the Taoiseach.
Kathleen O'Meara is an Irish former Labour Party politician. She was a member of Seanad Éireann from 1997 to 2007. On both occasions she was elected by the Agricultural Panel.
Seán Kelly is an Irish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the South constituency since July 2009. He is a member of Fine Gael, part of the European People's Party.
Eoghan Harris is an Irish journalist, columnist, director, and former politician. He has held posts in various and diverse political parties. He was a leading theoretician in the Marxist-Leninist Workers' Party. Harris was a fierce critic of Provisional Sinn Féin, from which they had split, and became an opponent of Irish republicanism. For much of the Troubles, from the 1970s until the 1990s, Harris worked in Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) and was influential in shaping the current affairs output of Ireland's national broadcaster. Later he began writing for the Sunday Independent newspaper.
Niall O'Dowd in County Tipperary, Ireland, is an Irish American journalist and author living in the United States. He was involved in the negotiations leading to the Northern Irish Good Friday Peace Agreement. He is founder of Irish Voice newspaper and Irish America magazine in New York City, as well as overseeing Home and Away newspaper. He is also the founder of IrishCentral, an Irish website which he launched in March 2009.
The 2011 Irish presidential election was the thirteenth presidential election to be held in Ireland, and was contested by a record seven candidates. It was held on Thursday, 27 October 2011. The election was held to elect a successor to Mary McAleese, with the winner to be inaugurated as the ninth President of Ireland on 11 November 2011. Two constitutional referendums and a by-election for a vacant Dáil seat in the Dublin West constituency took place on the same day.
The 2018 Irish presidential election took place on Friday, 26 October, between 7.00 a.m. and 10.00 p.m. President Michael D. Higgins, who was elected in 2011 with the support of the Labour Party, was seeking re-election to a second term as an Independent. This was the first time since the 1966 election that an incumbent president faced a contest for a second term. Higgins was re-elected on the first count with nearly 56% of the vote, becoming the first president since Éamon de Valera to win a second term in a contested election. He was inaugurated for his second term on 11 November.
Seán Gallagher is an Irish businessman and former reality television personality. He was a co-founder in 2000 of Smarthomes, which after initial success, failed in 2008–2010, and Gallagher departed in 2010–11. He was a panellist on RTÉ's Dragons' Den from 2009 to 2011. Gallagher was an active member of Fianna Fáil for 30 years, from 1981 to 2011, and sat on its National Executive twice. He spent much of his career before Smarthomes working in Fianna Fáil, and in the Irish public service. Gallagher ran as an independent candidate in the 2011 presidential election, finishing second to Michael D. Higgins. He ran again in the 2018 presidential election, finishing third.
Peter Joseph Casey is an Irish entrepreneur and unsuccessful political candidate. He is the founder and former Executive Chairman of Claddagh Resources, a global recruitment and executive search business. From 2012 to 2014 he was a panellist on the RTÉ television programme Dragons' Den, in which he was one of the investors adjudicating business plan pitches.
Independent politicians contest elections without the support of a political party. They have played a continuous role in the politics of the Republic of Ireland since its independence in 1922.
Mary McAleese began her first term as President of Ireland on 11 November 1997, following her inauguration at Saint Patrick's Hall in the State Apartments in Dublin Castle. McAleese was first elected as president in 1997, having received the nomination of Fianna Fáil. She succeeded Mary Robinson, making her the second female president of Ireland, and the first woman in the world to succeed another woman as an elected head of state.