...• Alison O'Connor concludes her article (January 28) by echoing Kathleen Lynch's hope to one day vote for a mediocre woman.In a speech on International Women's Day 2010, our then Tanaiste Mary Coughlan noted with some degree of triumph that women controlled...

The comments received heavy criticism from Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin. Both parties described them as insensitive and an insult to the thousands of young people who had been forced to leave. The remarks were compared to those made by former Fianna Fáil...

Nicholas Sommerlad. But the couple split after just 11 months and the star vowed she would never marry again. Her third child, Shane, whose father is folk musician Donal Lunny, was born in 2004. In 2006, Sinéad began a relationship with Frank Bonadio,...

Deputy McDecibel may have a tendency to piercing loudness, but as deputy leader of her party, she has had to contend with an unreasonable level of discourtesy from Government deputies when on her feet in the chamber. It has to be said, this is a...

Mary Coughlan, then minister for social and family affairs, let the cat out of the bag when she said the aim was to “decentralise” public bodies to locations where an influx of civil servants would have the greatest impact – smaller towns such as...

Lenihan was presented as a clever man talking his way into his finance brief but with only a tenuous understanding of it. The two Brians, the programme hammered home, were out of their depth. Missing, though, were Mary Coughlan, Cowen’s right-hand...