Ireland's celebrity MEP is Dana Rosemary Scallon, but there are a few others in Strasbourg too. The most celebrated is probably Gen Philippe Morillon, the UN commander in Bosnia in 1992/93, a French member of the EPP.
Also in the new parliament is the Earl of Stockton, grandson of Harold Macmillan; Charles de Gaulle, another grandson but whose candidacy for the far-right French National Front of Jean Marie le Pen led 50 de Gaulle relatives to write to Le Monde giving out about him; former agitator Daniel Cohn-Bendit now a German Green; the Italian media magnate Silvio Berlusconi who has his own right-wing party; and Reinhold Messner the well-known mountaineer and explorer who is an Italian Green.
In the directory of members, those with a dual mandate - and they are very few - have two stars before their names, among them Avril Doyle and Proinsias De Rossa. Only six among 626 boast the three stars donating a triple mandate. Two of them are Irish - John Hume and Ian Paisley.
