Think Kate O’Connell is formidable? Then meet her older sister (who wants to run for Fine Gael in the next election )
ON FRIDAY night in the Ragg, the cosy family-owned pub outside Thurles, Co. Tipperary, Mary Newman made her pitch to become a Fine Gael candidate in the next general election. In front of an audience which included Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, leadership contender Simon Coveney, who chaired the meeting, and a bevy of diehard party supporters along with parliamentary party members who were in nearby Clonmel for their annual think-in, the 42-year-old fired the starting gun on a frantic five or six-month process that will see her traverse the highways and byways of Tipperary in search of voters.
The sister of outspoken Fine Gael TD Kate O’Connell bears a striking resemblance to her sibling. Should Mary’s bid succeed at the party’s selection convention next year, she will have sown the seeds of a new Irish political dynasty, a force to rival the Lenihans or, perhaps more appropriately, the Mary Banotti/ Nora Owen sisterly combination.
But Mary – the mother of four young children who also has a high-powered job in industry – denies that empire-building was on her mind when she resolved to make the leap from grassroots activism to electoral politics during her summer holiday.
‘This is not about making history or a dynasty,’ she says firmly, with a manner that is as forthright as her sister’s.
‘It’s about hard work, achieving goals and making a difference. I don’t mean to sound high-minded but it’s not political aspiration that motivates me or Kate.
‘We were reared in a family where hard work was instilled. We were taught to be the best we could be and to look after people as best we can. It was a typical rural Irish thing; be a good neighbour, get on in life but not at any cost. We had to have a social conscience about it as well.’
Indeed, the lively household in Kilbeggan, Co. Westmeath, was ferociously hard-working and produced Mary, her more famous sister Kate, a TD for Dublin Bay South, and Theresa, the youngest of the girls, who Kate controversially hired as her assistant upon her election – and who it’s rumoured might nurse political ambitions of her own one day.
From the age of 14, the children had parttime jobs, everything from cleaning in the local hospital to working in B&Bs and, in Mary’s case, cycling eight miles every day to her job in the supermarket in Tullamore.
Like Kate, Mary takes great pride in her family’s fierce work ethic, while it has to be said that a flair for outspokenness might also be a family trait of which they both are proud.
A relative newcomer to the Dáil, Kate has a reputation for speaking her mind and, while her frank opinions may have won her admirers, they have also drawn the ire of the party hierarchy.
After her intervention in the Fine Gael leadership battle, branding Leo Varadkar’s supporters as ‘choirboys’ who are ‘singing for their suppers’ while attacking her constituency colleague Eoghan Murphy, she received a slap on the wrist from party headquarters and was warned to refrain from further verbal attacks.
‘I suppose I am outspoken. I have always been outspoken about things I believe in. I certainly wouldn’t speak out of both sides of my mouth,’ says Mary, explaining that her and her sisters’ credo is ‘stand for something or you fall for anything’.
‘I think Kate and I are very different but some people say we are very similar. But both of us believe that you should stand up for what you believe in, in what you think is the right thing, and try to represent what you think is the greater good.
‘Our ethos would be stand up and be counted. I don’t think anyone has ever bullied myself or Kate or Theresa.
‘But we always stand up for people who we think are not as vocal as we are. If I ever saw anyone being bullied at school or college, I’d prevent it.’
What does she think of the argument that in politics, public representatives must be team players, who are able to stifle their egos in the interests of party unity, if not their own career prospects? Does she believe that Kate may ultimately pay for her fearless plain speaking?
‘Are you referring to the leadership contest between Simon and Leo?’ asks Mary a touch warily.
‘I discussed that beforehand with Kate and she felt her loyalty was with Simon, she just felt they were more aligned.
‘But she is totally loyal to Leo now because he’s the winner. But that’s politics, I don’t think people should be punished for saying what they believe. If people don’t appreciate debate, openness and engagement, then you have a challenge.’
Mary agrees that sometimes shouting one’s mouth off is not the best tactic.
‘You have to be strategic in politics. But then I have a job, a good job. I’m willing to give it up if I am selected to fight the election, and if I’m elected to the Dáil. But I have no problem going back to being a vet or back to industry if it doesn’t work out. I’m not dependent on politics for a career so I suppose I have more freedom.’
The sisters’ father, Michael Newman, was a Fine Gael councillor but before his time in local politics, he worked as an agricultural officer in Mullingar. Their mother, Maura, trained as a nurse but she stayed at home to rear her six children while helping out on the small family farm in Kilbeggan.
The family were self-sufficient, growing their own vegetables and keeping poultry and
‘We were reared in a family where hard work was instilled… get on in life but not at any cost’
‘I would rather put my energy and passion into public service than anything else’
cattle but money was tight. ‘People think we get the politics from our father but he was a public servant so when we were children we didn’t know what party he supported,’ says Mary.
‘But our mother was out for every general election, every local election, collecting outside the church gate for Fine Gael. Family was first for her but Fine Gael was number two. She didn’t play bridge or golf, politics was her thing.’
There are four Newman sisters and they are all very close. Except for their sister Alison, a GP married in Australia, they are political animals, far more engaged by the cut and thrust of local and national politics than their two brothers.
Married to local man Tommy Julian, who has his own thriving veterinary practice, the first thing Mary did when she settled in Cashel in 2004 as a young vet was join the local branch of Fine Gael.
She served as secretary of her branch, campaigned for long-standing TD Tom Hayes and in the local elections for other party members.
‘Everybody knows I have always been interested in a political career,’ says Mary, who lives in Lagganstown, New Inn, between Tipperary town and Cashel.
‘People have always been slagging me about it.
‘Tommy lets me do my own thing and I let him do his. If I told him I was going to the moon tomorrow, he’d just ask if I had enough money and when I’d be back.’
Over 10 years ago, Mary stopped working as a vet – a profession she fought hard, and with characteristic determination, to enter – sitting her Leaving Cert three times in order to gain the required points. She then took a job in the animal health pharmaceutical industry.
‘I left practice temporarily – or so I thought – because my job was in Mitchelstown and the drive was too much to Cashel every day. I thought it was just a stop-gap until I got something closer but I love industry.
‘People often say that being a rural TD is no job for a woman, all that driving at night to meetings in out-of-the-way places and then up and down to Dublin,’ she says.
‘But driving on country boreens wouldn’t faze me. I worked for years as a vet, driving to farms in the middle of the night, it never took anything out of me.’
Her precarious work/life balance – specifically her desire to have time with her young children, the oldest of whom is seven – was a factor in her decision. Naturally she took soundings from Kate, who has three youngsters.
‘Kate says that she sees as much of the children as she ever did. She doesn’t work in her pharmacy any more so she has the weekends for the family.
‘Look, any woman who has her own business or a high-powered job works crazy hours. I spend two nights in Dublin as it is for my job, so politics is no more demanding than what I do now.
‘The point is that I would rather put my energy and passion into public service than anything else.
‘I also feel strongly that people like Kate and I who have had a good education and, in our case, a good science-based education, have a responsibility to stand up in the Dáil and say: “Hang on, that is not fact, that is not scientific fact, get your facts right.”
‘I think people often take their education for granted, they assume everyone knows what they know. But that is not the case. We should be advocates for science, particularly when the gap between public awareness and research is detrimental to the public good.’
Mary is referring to the row, much of it ill-informed, about the anti-cervical cancer jab Gardasil, which has contributed to the alarmingly low take-up levels of the HPV vaccine.
‘There is fantastic scientific research taking place in this country, particularly in agricultural science, but we need to communicate science better, particularly areas which could impact negatively on the public good.’
Mary worked hard on Kate’s election campaign in 2015 so, naturally, Kate was one of her first ports of call when she thought about her own electioneering.
‘Kate said to me to wait and see how she got on first,’ says Mary.
‘She knows I would go mad if I couldn’t get work done. But I think Kate is being very effective. She is achieving things; she’s on the water committee and on the health committee. That reassured me that being a TD was something I wanted to do and I could do it.’
Although a blow-in in her adopted county, Mary fell in love with Tipperary the moment she first laid eyes on it.
‘It was in 1996 and I was a vet student, sent there for work experience. Mammy and Daddy drove me and I will never forget how beautiful the place looked, from the Rock of Cashel to the rolling countryside. I just knew then and there that it was where I wanted to live forever.’
The annihilation of Fine Gael in Tipperary during the last election still visibly upsets her.
‘Keep The Recovery Going worked in Rathgar for Kate but it didn’t work in Tipperary. I think there is a real appetite for change now in Tipperary and for a young candidate.
‘Agriculture, industry and tourism are very important to my constituents and I have worked in these areas all my life.
‘I hope I’ll be considered as a candidate as I think I could achieve for Tipperary and for our society as a whole.’