From Sinn Fein's lone Kilkenny councillor to Irish MEP: The rise of Kathleen Funchion

It can’t have been easy for a young Kathleen Funchion, 15 years ago, taking her seat on the (sadly, now-abolished) Kilkenny Borough Council.

Since as far back as 1923, Sinn Fein had no council representative in Kilkenny. In the 1990s, it was Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour. In 1999, Sinn Fein did not run any candidate here. In 2003, they ran one in the city and one in South Kilkenny. Neither were successful.

In 2009, Funchion polled 667 first preferences, and missed out on the council seat, eliminated on Count 8. She did, however, manage to win a seat on the 12-seat borough council. In a mostly-male environment among the larger party groupings, it was daunting — but help came from nearby.

“It was definitely difficult,” she told the Kilkenny People this week. “But I genuinely remember people who were helpful and good to me. So, like the two Joes in particular (Fianna Fail’s Joe Reidy and Joe Malone). They were always helpful and very good, it was nice to have people willing to look out for you, and just colleagues. It has come a long way in one way, but there was nothing like those five years in the borough council; there was a range of so many things that came up. I really feel it was a forum where people worked.”
With Gerry Adams

Fast forward 15 years, and Funchion has ascended higher than virtually all of her contemporaries. Last week, she made history and won the fifth seat in the Ireland South consituency for the European Parliament.

She is the first Kilkenny MEP since Liam Aylward, and only the second woman from here after Phil Prendergast, whose political career was largely Tipperary-based. It’s a significant achievement for the Callan-born Funchion, who could not herself have predicted such a career. Her election track record is one the speaks of persistence and tenacity rather than overnight success.

She previously contested a European election in 2009, and was not successful. She fought for a Dail seat in 2007, 2011, and the 2015 by-election — and each time missed out.  In 2016, she made it over the line and won the seat. In 2020, she held onto that seat with a record-breaking, poll topping 17,493 first preference vote that stunned even the most optimistic of party forecasters. It is an election showing unlikely to be bettered by anyone anytime soon.

She will continue with her TD duties for another month, and then on July 16 pick up her new portfolio.
“My plan is to be commuting — obviously I will stay in Brussels a number of nights a week,” she says.

“It’s a Tuesday morning to Thursday evening, and there’s one week where it’s Strasbourg Monday to Thursday. So that’s my plan for now anyway, and see how doable it is.”

The idea of running for Europe was obviously a goal back in 2009, but the years have seen many changes.

“Obviously it was a very different time for me personally and politically. I was only elected for the first time that year to the council,” she says. “But I would have had an interest —you see how much of our legislation comes from Europe, and the direction has changed big time. It’s not as positive for people, maybe, as it was.”

She talks of the strides made and new legislation crafted in areas such as childcare, workers’ rights, and gender equality coming from Europe.

“Many areas are being squeezed,” she feels. “Europe is seen as a lot more of paperwork and bureaucracy, rules being imposed upon people. So I thought it was important for the South-East as a region to have a strong voice, and given the fact I have a number of years’ experience in the council at local level, and now at national level, chairing the cross-party childcare committee, particularly during difficult pieces like mother and baby homes.

“I thought that would all be good experience. From a personal point of view, my children are at a different age, so it would be a lot more doable. So all that combined to make me think ‘now is the time’.”

There’s no doubt that people who perhaps would not normally vote for Kathleen Funchion or Sinn Fein, did so this time because they saw a Kilkenny name and face on the ballot paper. With Carlow’s Cynthia Ní Murchú also winning an MEP seat, this constituency has two representatives going to Europe. So, given the nature of the role, is there any inherent value to having a local MEP?

“I would hope it would be good for this constituency, and the wider region of the South-East,” she replies. “What struck me during the campaign is there are lots of different groups, not only in Kilkenny — community groups, the equivalent of Family Resource Centres, disability groups — operating on shoestring budgets.

“There’s a lot of potential funding there we aren’t tapping into. On the wider thing, potential funding for the university, for research and development funding. That would obviously have an impact on the constituency. So I do think there are people who maybe saw the benefit in that and who decided to give me a chance. So I will have to work hard now for the next five years, and prove it was a good idea to do that.”

What would be a positive outcome from this term?
“I would like to see that we can actually see the direction of Europe kind of changing back to what it was originally supposed to be about. Even the name years ago, European Community, and I think it’s totally changed from that,” Funchion says.

“On a more practical and local level, I’d like to see the impact of my work if possible, for example, with funding streams, local groups. I know there’s major issues in the fisheries communities, major issues for small farmers. That you might see changes — positive changes in those fields as well.”

Sinn Fein has been critical of European Commision president Ursula Von der Leyen over a number of issues, including Palestine. Funchion is opposed to her doing another term, although the numbers may not be there to challenge that. Another issue may present in the steady gains made by the far right in this election.

“They definitely made some increases, but I don’t think they made the gains they would have liked to have made, or some people might have feared,” she says.

“But they are registering now definitely. And while I don’t think it was as noticeable in Ireland, there are still some people who got significant votes in the European Elections who would have had a more rightwing agenda. So that’s why we need, more than ever, strong common sense voices, and to bring that approach.”

Local elections
Sinn Fein is coming off the back of a pretty bruising Local Elections. While 2019 was the nadir for the party here (going from three seats to none), 2024 was only marginally better.

“No, it definitely wasn’t the result we were hoping for. I really was hopeful we would get one councillor in each of the local electoral areas. We’ve never managed to achieve that — the closest was 2014, when we had three,” she says.
The 2020 Dáil poll topper admits she was extremely disappointed, but feels the eight people who went forward were great candidates, most of them first-time candidates.

“I suppose there are a number of things we need to look at. In Sinn Fein first of all, to ask ourselves why is that message not resonating? We seem to be able to resonate on a national governmental level, but it doesn’t seem to trickle down to local,” she says.

She acknowledges it has been difficult for those newcomers, but encourages them to stay involved.
“It’s fantastic we have Stephanie Doheny in. My own hometown of Callan really came out behind her; it’s her own town as well.”

With a General Election on the horizon, the plan for the party locally is to re-gather. There remains the matter of who will replace Kathleen Funchion in the Dáil. They have held the seat now for eight years; Funchion the one constant for so long she is almost synonymous with the party here. They will be big boots to fill, if indeed they can be filled. Still, the party is hopeful of a good General Election, and optimistically, aim to be in Government, potentially.

“We will definitely have a candidate; in fact, we are genuinely hopeful of having two — one in Kilkenny, and one for Carlow,” she says.

“And there are a number of people there, but we have to actually sit down ourselves, first internally, and go through all that ourselves before saying anything publicly. But we do have a few ideas.”