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Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part. He never saw himself as a ladies' man, but pollsters knew that demographically Bertie Ahern was something of a magnet for the female vote. And as the hostesses for the gala occasion, Georgina and Cecelia Ahern were determined that the women would not be parked while the men partied in Croker.
There was one significant omission: Celia Larkin, his former partner who separated from him in -- more than 20 years after they first started working on Project Bertie. They shared an ambition -- Bertie and his political career -- and they worked on it night and day from , when he was a backbench TD, until his second term as Taoiseach in They also shared a home and many headlines, but not his place in history, and Ms Larkin did not get a piece of his 60th birthday cake.
Ms Larkin began working full-time for Bertie Ahern TD on secondment from the civil service in and she became the architect and sometime enforcer through much of his political career. They travelled the world together meeting a US president, a British prime minister, many heads of state -- and then she greeted them as his partner when they visited Ireland.
Speculation about them marrying was a regular item in the media with much theorising about why he was so reluctant to commit. His devout Catholicism was one reason put forward for his hesitance but close friends and colleagues had another hypothesis: his daughters.
The daughters had a visceral dislike of Ms Larkin, according to friends: "They saw her as the reason why their dad had left home -- and the cause of their mum's unhappiness when they were very young," said one of them. It all goes back to , when Bertie Ahern was Lord Mayor of Dublin and a TD for Dublin's north inner city with an unquenchable thirst for power and success.
For four years he had been working alongside Celia Larkin, then aged 26, who had hitched her ambitions to his and they appeared to be inseparable. He had moved to a neat semi-detached house in Malahide where his wife Miriam kept a model home and looked after Georgina 8 and Cecelia 5.
Oh, the irony: the big hit in the summer of was Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach'. Bertie was never home, talk about his closeness to Celia Larkin never ceased and it was Miriam who decided their relationship was over. The Ahern family sided with Miriam and Bertie's mother and sisters, the closest in the family to him, were shocked, hurt and deeply angry with him -- and Celia Larkin.
Seeing their mother's distress and the hissing hostility of the Ahern family to Celia, the children could hardly be blamed for seeing her as responsible. The ex-partner of the former Taoiseach has had more to say on her relationship with Bertie Ahern today. Christmas shoppers faced an unusual situation last year during Covid restrictions, with most early shopping needing to be done online. Poll Results:. This week, our reader is enjoying going out and socialising with friends again after the lockdowns.
Our columnist says Democrats were bruised by recent elections and he now has this advice for both parties…. The renowned chef and TV personality has some new flavours to add to your kitchen servings.
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Get ahead of the day with the morning headlines at 7. Enter email address This field is required Sign Up. She went on to study a degree in Politics and International relations at the University of Limerick, graduating with first class honours.
She worked for nearly five years with Thames Water as local and regional government liaison and stakeholder and customer manager. She returned to the mid-west last year, working in financial services for the Support Services Directorate at Limerick City and County Council.
She worked in the civil service for 18 years across a range of Mr Ahern's departments, including the Department of Finance and Taoiseach's office.
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