Enda Kenny

Enda Kenny ( Irish : Éanna Ó Coinnigh ) (born April 24, 1951 in Castlebar , County Mayo ) is an Irish politician of the Fine Gael . He was Prime Minister of Ireland from March 9, 2011 to June 13, 2017 .

Enda Kenny (2014)

career

Kenny attended St. Patrick's Teacher Training College in Drumcondra / Dublin and the National University in Galway City. In 1975 he was elected to the 20th Dáil Éireann in a by-election in the Mayo West constituency, occupying the vacant seat of his late father Henry Kenny . In all subsequent elections he was able to defend his mandate. During the 24th Dáil he held the post of State Minister in the Ministry of Education from February 13, 1986 to March 1987 . In December 1994, Kenny was appointed Minister of Tourism and Trade by Taoiseach (Prime Minister) John Bruton and served in the government until June 1997.

Kenny during the WEF 2012

When the Fine Gael suffered landslide losses in the 2002 elections for Dáil Éireann and lost 23 of the 54 parliamentary seats, Kenny was elected in June of the same year to succeed Michael Noonan as the new chairman of Fine Gael. As such, he succeeded in almost making up for the 2002 election losses in the lower house elections in May 2007, in which the Fine Gael now achieved 51 seats and again was clearly the second strongest force in parliament. After his party's victory in the general election in February 2011, Kenny was Taoiseach on March 9, 2011, replacing Brian Cowen from Fianna Fáil .

On May 17, 2017, Kenny resigned from his position as party leader of Fine Gael with effect from May 18, 2017 and at the same time stated that he would only hold the office of Taoiseach until a successor was named on June 2. The Irish Parliament elected Leo Varadkar as his successor on June 14, 2017 . Kenny was under pressure for months "because of his role in a smear campaign against a police whistleblower" before his resignation.

In addition to his work in Parliament, he was a member of Mayo County Council from 1975 to 1995 .

Personal

Kenny has been married to Fionnuala O'Kelly since 1992 and has three children together. He is a committed hiker and mountaineer and climbed Kilimanjaro, among other things . He was an active gaelic football player in his youth and is still a fan member of the Mayo Gaelic football club. He is fluent in Irish .

Kenny has a special relationship with Inis Oírr , the smallest of the three Aran Islands . One of his ancestors held the post of lighthouse keeper on the island, and Kenny likes to say that it was there on Inis Oírr beach that he proposed to his wife Fionnuala.

literature

• Enda Kenny , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 18/2011 from May 3, 2011, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Enda Kenny  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: entry on the Fine Gael website )
• Entry on the side of the Oireachtas
• Irish Ministries
• Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, Heike Göbel and Andreas Ross: "We should exhaust all possibilities of the current contract". In conversation: Enda Kenny. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . November 17, 2011, accessed on November 18, 2011 (Interview with Kenny on the euro crisis ). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kenny new Irish Prime Minister. Retrieved March 9, 2011 . 
2. ↑ Henry McDonald, Enda Kenny announces resignation as Fine Gael leader , in: The Guardian , May 17, 2017, accessed May 18, 2017
3. ^ Leo Varadkar becomes Republic of Ireland's taoiseach . In: BBC News . June 14, 2017 ( bbc.com [accessed July 13, 2017]).
4. ↑ Prime Minister Enda Kenny Announces Withdrawal , Spiegel Online , May 18, 2017, accessed June 3, 2017
5. ^ Portrait of Enda Kenny in IT from February 26, 2011.