Young man from a deep political heritage
REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF VENTURED TO ENNISKERRY FOR A CHAT WITH ONE OF IRELAND’S YOUNGEST EVER ELECTED PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVES AND DISCOVERED COUNCILLOR RORY O’CONNOR HAS A BLEND OF CHARM AND DETERMINATION, WITH A GREEN VISION
NO, Rory O’Connor is not quite the youngest ever councillor elected to an Irish local authority but he must surely be the second youngest. At the precocious age of 20, he was chosen last year to represent the Bray West ward on Wicklow County Council. He is, however, undoubtedly the youngest person to take up a position as chair of a policy committee on any county council. His fellow councillors recently entrusted him with command of their newly formed climate and biodiversity arm, setting him challenges which he relishes.
Now turned 21, he is enjoying his meteoric rise to prominence as he strolls around his home turf of Enniskerry, keeping an eye on the implementation of pedestrianisation in the town centre, checking that all is going well with the installation of bollards and road markings. His considerable height lends him a certain degree of the gravitas which befits a public representative. But the loose-fitting shorts in which he turns up for interview, and the floppy Covid-mad hair, give the impression that Rory has not lost his youth and good humour with his elevation to high office. This is no stuffed shirt councillor.
The whippersnapper comes, of course, from good political stock. His great-grandfather was Sean Lemass. Taoiseach Sean Lemass, the man credited with dragging the economy of our republic into the 20th century. Sean Lemass, leader of the country from 1959 to 1966. Sean Lemass, Fianna Fáil legend. Though he died in 1971, almost three decades before Cllr O’Connor was born, the great man remains very much present in the family background. Rory recalls the annual gatherings of the clan at the Lemass grave in Deansgrange, and outings up the Wicklow hills to visit the spot where Sean’s brother Noel Lemass died during the Civil War.
The thread of public service does not stop there. Rory’s father – another Sean, daughter of Sheila O’Connor (née Lemass) – also had youthful moments in the spotlight. He was head of Ogra Fianna Fáil and was very briefly a senator, appointed by Charles J Haughey to fill a short term vacancy in the upper house in 1982, when aged all of 22. Sean then then took up a career in business and an attempt to return to the Senate in the election of 2007 failed to secure him a seat. A Dubliner, he and his English-born wife Elizabeth have raised their family of five in the pleasant surroundings of Enniskerry.
So it was that Rory O’Connor attended the local St Mary’s and St Gerard’s primary school, and he still counts many among his former classmates there as good friends. Secondary education was received a bus ride away in Dublin, followed by a three-year immersion in the politics and communications course at UCD. Although he joined Ogra while an undergraduate, as a good chip off the old block should, he was not to the fore in college politics or debating.
Home on the other hand is a vibrant cockpit of political discussion, with all the family keen followers of current affairs in print and on broadcast media. The middle of five siblings, Rory can always count on lively debate of the issues of the
day with his two sisters and two brothers. Up to recently, such talk would always be anchored in the party of de Valera and Lemass, the affiliation to the Soldiers of Destiny a given.
‘Everyone in the family used to vote Fianna Fáil,’ he reckons, ‘until I broke the mould. Now they vote independently.’ The break came after he spotted an FF advertisement seeking candidates to run in last year’s local elections. Rory put his name down and he was called to an interview at headquarters in Mount Street. What the interviewers thought of the then teenager from Enniskerry is anyone’s guess. The fact is that their interviewee emerged with a determination to run, but to run as an independent though he realised he risked being disowned.
‘I have always been obsessed with climate change,’ he says by way of explanation, ‘ but the two elderly gentlemen who conducted the interview didn’t seem too interested.’ Breaking the news to his dad was a nerve jangler but Sean O’Connor took his son’s defection in good spirit. The campaign to have O’Connor, Rory (Independent) take a seat on the council did not, on the face of things, have a great deal going for it.
The candidate was far from being a household name, even in his own backyard of Enniskerry. Granted, he had attended the national school and played soccer up to under 14 with Enniskerry FC. But this picturesque village is vintage Fine Gael territory and FG’s Melanie Corrigan was bound to take the lion’s share of the vote hereabouts. Bray West also extends to Kilmacanogue but, as the ward name suggests, the majority of the electorate is in Bray where name recognition for the debutant across the housing estates of Southern Cross was practically zero.
To make the challenge all the stiffer, having severed ties with Fianna Fáil organisation, he had to assemble a team of supporters from scratch. Family members, school pals and college buddies all rowed in with a will but someone with the experience the candidate lacked was also required. He was fortunate to be able to call on David Grant to serve as his director of elections and supply the missing expertise. The former FF councillor not only knew what was required to fight the good fight but he also brought intimate knowledge of the landscape in Bray.
As a student of information technology communications, the candidate was immediately at home with creating an online presence through Facebook and Instagram – that came naturally. However, when he speaks now of the campaign, he talks mostly of a good, old-fashioned, door-todoor, foot-slogging canvass. The candidate was taking his second-year college examinations at the time but he gives the impression that this was where he received his real education.
He and his team diced with traffic in Kilmac. They hunted second preferences in Enniskerry. They tried their level best not to arrive on Southern Cross doorsteps just as parents put children to bed. And at the end of it all, not only did O’Connor, Rory (Independent) beat rival McGahon, Ian (Labour) to the fourth and final seat, he also passed the exams. In the year since, the learning process has continued, not least through listening to the often harrowing stories told by constituents on the housing list. And he has recently become a fully-fledged Bachelor of Arts, having sat his UCD finals online, so that he can now fairly describe himself as a full-time politician.
The €18,000 salary which comes with his seat is very handy pocket money for a young man fresh out of third level at a time when jobs are scarce. He has not blown the money on a car, proud to describe himself as one of the few members of the local authority who arrives at meetings by public transport. Travelling on the 185 bus, switching to the 133, allows him time to go over the agenda and prepare his contribution, he reckons.
The obsession with saving the planet may be traced back to his time at primary school where principal John O’Connor (no relation) led the pursuit of a series of Green Flags.
Rory says frankly that he expected ageism (youthism?) from his fellow councillors but reports: ‘ They all treat the new boy as an equal and I get on with all of them.’ The truth of this is underlined by his elevation to the position of policy committee chair. When it came to picking someone to lead the new climate and biodiversity committee, his tender years proved no barrier.
He has already chaired one meeting, via a Zoom call, and he is keen to grapple with issues ranging from computer software, to solar energy and plant pollination. The full-time politician appears immediately at home in the role, as he looks forward to meeting more of his constituents without the immediate pressure of an election.
The great-grandson of Sean Lemass insists that being an independent is the right course, even as he sits beside FF defector Joe Behan at council meetings. And he does not rule out the possibility of following in family footsteps by going into national politics at some stage in the future, coyly hinting that a seat in the Senate might suit him. At the age of 21 he can afford to wait for any such advancement.
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN OBSESSED WITH CLIMATE CHANGE BUT THE TWO GENTLEMEN WHO CONDUCTED THE INTERVIEW DIDN’T SEEM TOO INTERESTED