Ambassador’s bigNYwelcome

SHE once said that you could take the girl out of Drogheda but you couldn’t take Drogheda out of the girl and Geraldine Byrne Nason again showed her true colours on St Patrick’s Day.

Ireland’s Ambassador to the UN, Geraldine warmly welcomed a crew from Drogheda and Louth at a reception held in the UN building on Ireland’s most celebrated day.

And she was particularly delighted to accept a very special gift of a framed image of a Suffragette movement march through Drogheda in the early part of the last century.

It was a great day for the region with Dowth man Stevie Hand leading out the parade with his horse Samson and his Central Park carraige.

The likes of council chairman Colm Markey, Cllr Paul Bell, Frank Pentony, Mary Pentony, Thomas McEvoy, Jimmy Weldon and Brian Condra were all part of the experience in the Big Apple.

‘It was a wonderful experience,’ photographer Jimmy remarked, adding that the Grand Marshal Loretta Brennan Glucksman asked for her local friends, Cathal and Ruth Kelly while Ambassador Byrne Nason had a shout out for Betty Duggan and family back home.

‘ Tommy and Treasa Smith were great to us over there and helped with the organisation for the parade,’ Jimmy added.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar with Geraldine Byrne Nason Irish Ambassador to the United Nations

Steve Hand Dowth Co, Meath with Loretta Brennan Glucksman Grand Marshal St Patrick’s Day Parade and Loretta’s Grandson Liam Picco at the St Patrick’s Day Parade in New York

Janice Kavanagh Drogheda with Kelly, Conor and James White

Eathan Hanratty and Karen Hanratty Trinity Gardens, Drogheda with Mark Richard and Kayle Richard