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Newly-elected
MEP
Patricia McKenna is as cool as a cucumber. Meeting her in the street coming back with messages from the local shop early one morning with her son Oisin, you couldn't help but be amazed. Was this ordinary young housewife – dressed in casual sweater and trainers – really our newly-elected Green MEP, with weeks of gruelling electioneering just behind her? She claims she was never in real doubt about what the outcome would be, despite some opinion polls. Glad all the hullabaloo was over, she looked forward to once again promoting the green agenda in Europe – but first she was going to fix breakfast!. When she's not in Brussels or Strasbourg, Patricia prefers the green, green grass of home in Drumcondra, which she feels is a haven of tranquility after the bustle of European capitals. She and husband Martin gutted their modest Victorian terraced house after buying it and used their good taste (she's a former art teacher) in restoring it. The renovation is ongoing ("you are never really finished working on these wee cottages" she says in a tuneful Monaghan accent which, thankfully, neither Brussels or Dublin have so far managed to eradicate) but she is pleased with the progress to date. She much prefers living in a house with character to living in an apartment, although she regrets not having enough space to store bikes, which they are sometimes forced to chain to the railings outside. Not that she is able to cycle as much as she did before young Oisin came along (he will be three next August). Mostly she travels by bus or dart although she ocassionally uses the train from Drumcondra station. When the time comes, Oisin's name will be put down for one of the local schools. Would she like him to follow in mother's footsteps and become a politician? Not really, although she thinks he would probably be good at it (while we were talking Oisin showed distinct political promise. He was busy ringing the doorbell of a neighbour's house – whether out of divilment or whether he was practising the canvass, I couldn't say!). – Jim Carew, 1999
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Patricia
and Oisin McKenna |
