ANN MARIE MURPHY and Niall Dunne were married on August 21st in Mong Chapel in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, by Fr Paul Byrne, an Oblate priest who has been a friend of the groom’s family for over 20 years. Their reception was at Mount Juliet.
The bride is the daughter of Patrick and Sheila Murphy, and grew up in Tuam, Co Galway. She attended the local Presentation primary and secondary schools and has a BA in psychology from NUI Galway and an MA in social and organisational psychology from UCD. She is currently working on a PhD in organisational psychology in DCU.
Niall grew up in Templeogue, Dublin, the only child of Therese and Shay Dunne. He attended Templeogue College before studying for his degree in business and economics at Trinity College Dublin. He took an MA in UCD, then went to London to work in investment banking before returning to Ireland to work as a financial markets strategist at Ulster Bank, where he looked after the bank’s media comments on financial affairs. After five years he left to study for an MBA in Insead in Paris, which is when he started to write a monthly MBA diary for Business This Week in this newspaper.
The couple were introduced by mutual friends in Dublin.
Ann Marie’s niece Sadbh acted as junior bridesmaid, and her six-year-old niece Muirinn was her flowergirl. Both wore dresses made by Ann Marie’s mother. Niall asked his father to act as his best man, and his mother, who gave the bride Niall’s grandmother’s sapphire ring, sang during the mass.
"We love to reminisce about our time in France and we wanted something a bit more up-tempo for our recessional music so All You Need is Loveby The Beatles was perfect as it starts with La Marseillaise. Our entire congregation started to sing along as we walked down the aisle, which gave us a great send-off," said Ann Marie.