A lovely start to the week for Martin Fraser, Ireland’s Ambassador to the UK, who was named Ambassador of the Year for Europe at a very swanky do in the London Hilton on Park Lane on Monday night.
The place was heaving with ambassadors and high commissioners, consuls, attaches and chefs de whatever you’re having yourself for the 16th annual Diplomat magazine awards.
Guests were inundated with high-end canapés and sponsored champagne at a reception before the awards ceremony hosted by the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent James Landale.
There were 10 gongs on offer to some of the most influential diplomats based in the UK and the winners were nominated by their peers, making them the diplomats’ diplomats. Quite the achievement for ardent Dubs and Liverpool supporter Fraser, who was born and raised on the mean streets of, eh, Malahide.
READ MORE
Naming the outgoing Irish Ambassador as one of the big winners, Landale cited his years of public service and his work on Brexit and the peace process before calling him a “fixer extraordinaire”.
The award is the icing on the London cake for the non-career diplomat who rose through the ranks to serve for 11 years and three taoisigh as government general secretary and head of the Civil Service.
His posting ends this summer. Then he has to legate to New York for a new job as Ireland’s ambassador to the United Nations.
It’s a nice, quiet time for him to be going there.
His successor at the Court of St James is the vastly experienced assistant sec gen at Foreign Affairs, Sonja Hyland, who hails from the badlands of Dún Laoghaire on the other side of Dublin Bay.
Among the awards handed out to diplomats from across the globe was one for “Outstanding Contribution to Diplomacy in London”.
It went to Arsenio Dominguez, secretary general of the International Maritime Organisation, who has been thrust into the spotlight since February 2026 when it all kicked off in the Strait of Hormuz.
Well done, Arsenio, although it must have been terribly disappointing for hot favourites Morgan McSweeney and Peter Mandelson.
The Irish Ambassador’s prize was sponsored by Forax diplomatic tax-free fuel cards.
Tax-free fuel cards. Now there’s a mini-budget idea for the Government.
Don’t mention the war, Martin.
The Connolly effect
As her sister was sailing for Gaza with the international aid flotilla on Wednesday night, President Catherine Connolly was making waves of her own at an event back home.
She was guest of honour at a reception to launch the Dublin branch of the University of Galway’s alumni network and during her speech she spoke of questioning “the nature of ties between our State and its institutions and those of states and organisations carrying out violations of human rights”.
She then criticised her alma mater over its links with educational institutions in Israel and said staff and students in Galway have “raised serious concerns” over them.
The Irish Independent reported on Thursday that guests in the President’s Hall at the Law Society headquarters “knew something was coming” when she started by saying her views wouldn’t go down well with the university.
An unidentified guest is quoted as saying that before she made the controversial comments, “she took off her glasses for added effect”.
She has a habit – as many do – of repeatedly taking her glasses on and off while delivering a scripted speech.
The following morning, the president was in Croke Park to address the Global Irish Civic Forum and it seems the remark in the Indo hit a nerve.
As she got into her speech, he suddenly realised what she was doing.
“Forgive me for putting on and off my glasses. It’s not for effect, but I haven’t made the decision yet to get permanent glasses. They’re reading glasses, although it has been said I do it for effect,” she confessed.
“I don’t actually, but anyway, yeah ...”
A little thin-skinned, perhaps?
As she came to the end of her speech about the diaspora, Connolly hesitated and then she said: “I couldn’t leave the stage without saying I’m very conscious of the arrests being made on the flotilla. I’ll leave my comments at that – the arrests that have been made of Irish citizens among a number of other citizens, and I say that in the context of a speech where most of our people left on ships in very bad conditions and now we’re in a situation where a flotilla of solidarity is in ...”
The president, and the people in the room, were aware of the events overnight when Israeli forces raided a number of boats in the flotilla, detaining more than 200 people including Irish citizens. Her sister’s boat was not boarded on this occasion when vessels were intercepted in international waters off the coast of Greece.
She choked up and she had to pause before the end of her sentence.
“ ... in difficulty”.
And with a heavy sigh, she concluded her short address with some final remarks in Irish.
General Jim
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan did the honours at the retirement party for the former general secretary of his department, Oonagh McPhillips. The speeches were in the department’s atrium followed by a shindig in Madigans.
Jim is good at the speeches. If the politics doesn’t work out for him and he doesn’t want to return to the Bar, he might consider doing a bit of stand-up.
He took his guests – a who’s-who of Civil Service top brass along with a dazzling array of current and former ministers – through the highlights of Oonagh’s 40-year career, 38 of them in Justice.
Big Jim said Friday the 15th of November 1985 was a very important day in Ireland – it’s the day the taoiseach and British PM signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement in Hillsborough and, “more importantly”, the day “a young woman from Drumcondra” began her first day as a clerical assistant in the Department of the Environment.
Following a brief stint there, she began her tenure in St Stephen’s Green when Gerry Collins was minister for justice. And on the day she departed, another Collins, Niall, holds ministerial office there.
She served “under that dashing duo of ministers Ray Burke and Pádraig Flynn”.
Jim said it is not known what young Oonagh thought about them but one of P Flynn’s “biggest mistakes” in his political career was when he was introduced to her while on a ministerial tour of his department.
“I am reliably informed that having met young Oonagh the naive Minister uttered the memorable lines ‘cailín deas’. It is true to say that minister Flynn didn’t see Oonagh’s right hook to his jaw coming but I am reliably informed that he was flattened for three minutes until stretchered out by assistant secretaries and the ambulance service.”
Oonagh served under five women ministers for justice – Nora Owen, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Frances Fitzgerald, Heather Humphreys and Helen McEntee.
When she was promoted to higher executive officer, three big global events were happening.
“One of them was that in Ireland there was a fuel crisis and the Irish government decided to invoke powers under the Fuel Acts to control the cost and supply of fuel,” said Jim.
“How times have changed. You certainly won’t be seeing any such knee-jerk reaction from the current Irish Government to any fuel crisis.”
At one point, Oonagh was press secretary to Michael McDowell.
“Being press secretary to Michael McDowell was no doubt an interesting experience, a bit like today being the harbourmaster on the Strait of Hormuz.”
As a new Minister of just 14 months, “I would also like to thank Oonagh for minding me. Many Ministers, myself included, believe they do not need minding. I can assure you we do.”
The secretary general retired the week after the fuel blockades when Big Jim caused consternation with remarks about bringing in the army.
“Even on Sunday last weekend Oonagh was in the office assisting me to steer a resolution and a Justice response to what was an extremely challenging week for Government.
“I also want to thank her for helping me with the finalisation of my infantry tactics. However, I did get slightly concerned later on Sunday evening when she stopped calling me ‘Minister’ and started calling me ‘General’.”
A voter fumes
Those fuel protests are still resonating in rural Ireland and government candidates on the canvass in the Galway West byelection are braced for some robust comments from voters.
Last week in Claregalway, a canvassing team for Fine Gael Senator Seán Kyne encountered a woman as they made their way around the town who was less than impressed with the candidate.
Where was he at the fuel protests?
When asked to give him a vote she replied: “I wish ye the best of luck but no. Not Seán Kyne. That guy hadn’t a sniff of diesel on his snout.”
Basement bedsit?
What’s next on the Taoiseach’s build ’em or bust policy to get housing supply up by all possible methods putting in all classes of accommodation.
The “shedsits” are getting a mixed reception in Leinster House – the Opposition is appalled by the notion while, privately, some Government backbenchers are starting to express reservations too.
But did Micheál let the next wheeze slip when he was giving out to Labour’s Ivana Bacik after she took issue with him telling the Dáil that migration has had a huge impact on homeless figures?
“Aah look, don’t be getting into high dungeon with me,” he told her.
High dungeons?
Why not?
The Markievicz connection
Sunday (May 3rd) is Polish Constitution Day and last Wednesday a fresh cabbage and sauerkraut-laden casserole called bigos (Polish hunter’s stew) was on the lunch menu in the Dáil canteen.
Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy welcomed Polish charge d’affaires Artur Michalski to the Dáil chamber along with a 40-strong contingent from Polish-Irish groups from around the country.
They also visited the Seanad where Cathaoirleach Mark Daly laid on one of his usual flowery national day speeches for the visitors.
The convener of the Ireland-Poland Parliamentary Friendship Group, Wicklow TD Malcolm Byrne, escorted the visitors around Leinster House and also organised a lecture by writer, novelist and chairman of the Irish Polish Society Patrick Quigley on the Markievicz connection that links the two countries.
Byrne focused on the story of Irish revolutionary Constance Markievicz and her husband, the Polish artist and author Casimir Markievicz, examining how Constance was influenced by her connection to Poland at a time when both countries were seeking independence over a century ago.
With the centenary of the founding of Fianna Fáil coming up in two weeks’ time, Quigley told how Constance was actually a Polish citizen in 1926 when she chaired that first meeting of Fianna Fáil.
In 1922, before independence, she wanted to go to the US but, as there was no such thing as an Irish passport yet, she refused to apply for a British one. Instead, she took Polish citizenship through her husband.
The talk accompanied an exhibition, Casimir – a Polish Artist in Bohemian Dublin (1903-1913), which ran all week in the Leinster House coffee dock.
