Eamon Gilmore

Eamon Gilmore (born 24 April 1955) is a European Union diplomat, and an Irish former Labour Party politician.

Eamon Gilmore was born into a small farming family in Caltra, County Galway in 1955.

When he was 14 months old his father died, leaving his mother to run the mixed farm and raise Gilmore and his younger brother John.

Gilmore received his primary education in Caltra, in a small two-teacher national school.

He was taught there through the medium of Irish, and he is a fluent Irish speaker to this day.

Following his sixth-year state primary exam, he qualified for a scholarship from Galway County Council which enabled him to attend secondary school.

He entered Garbally College, Ballinasloe, as a boarder in 1967.

Availing himself of a third-level grant to fund his degree, he went on to study psychology at UCG.

He was an active member of the Drama Society at the university, where his contemporaries included the theatre director Garry Hynes and actor Marie Mullen who both went on to found the Druid Theatre Company.

He also took part in the university debating scene, mainly through the Literary and Debating Society.

He was elected class representative and later, at the age of 18, was elected President of UCG Students' Union from July 1974 to June 1975.

In 1975, towards the end of his term of office, he joined the UCG Republican Club which was affiliated to Official Sinn Féin; that party was subsequently renamed Sinn Féin – The Workers' Party, and later still became the Workers' Party.

In recent years he has been accused of being evasive on the subject and of trying to play down that he had joined the Official Republican Movement; he has stated that the party "was in the process of becoming the Workers' Party at that time, I can't recall exactly the dates".

From 1976 until 1978, Gilmore served as President of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI).

Prior to establishing a career in politics, he worked as a trade union organiser.

He joined the Irish Transport & General Workers' Union (now SIPTU) in 1978 and, after brief spells in Dublin No. 4 (Hotels & Catering) and Dublin No. 14 (Engineering) Branches, was rapidly promoted to become Acting Secretary of the Galway Branch (1978–79), Secretary of the Tralee Branch (1979–81), and of the Professional & Managerial Staffs Branch (1981–89).

He was heavily involved in organising tax protests in Galway, and resisting redundancies and closures in County Kerry.

Gilmore has described the driving factors which have informed his working life, whether as a trade union officer or public representative.

"I like advocating. I love to share in the joy people get out of cracking it, getting the job or getting some right they should have. I get huge satisfaction out of working for improvements and seeing those come through".

Gilmore was elected at the 1985 election to the electoral county of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, serving on both Dún Laoghaire Borough Council and Dublin County Council.

He was a Teachta Dála for the Dún Laoghaire constituency from 1989 to 2016.

He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1989 general election as a member of the Workers' Party for the constituency of Dún Laoghaire, and was re-elected at every subsequent general election until he retired at the 2016 general election.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was linked with Proinsias De Rossa in attempting to jettison some of the Workers' Party's Marxist aspect and to move the party towards an acceptance of free-market economics.

Along with other prominent figures including Proinsias De Rossa and Eamon Dunphy, Gilmore was among the first organisers of the Peace Train campaign which was started in 1989 in response to the repeated bombing of the Dublin to Belfast railway by the Provisional IRA.

He was re-elected at the 1991 election; both were abolished in January 1994, with Gilmore continuing thereafter for Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council.

In an attempt to address these issues Gilmore and De Rossa along with their supporters sought to distance themselves from paramilitary activity at a special Ardfheis held in Dún Laoghaire on 15 February 1992.

A motion proposed by De Rossa and general secretary Des Geraghty sought to stand down the existing membership, elect an 11-member provisional executive council and make several other significant changes in party structures was defeated.

The following day at an Ard Chomhairle meeting, six of the party's seven TDs, including De Rossa and Gimore, resigned from the Workers' Party to create a new political party, Democratic Left (originally known as New Agenda).

Throughout his political career, Gilmore has worked for peace in Northern Ireland.

Gilmore was elected unopposed as Labour Party leader in 2007; he resigned the post in July 2014, and was succeeded by Joan Burton.

He was Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade from 2011 to 2014, Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2014, Chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from 2012 to 2013, Minister of State at the Department of the Marine from 1994 to 1997.

At the 2011 general election he led the Labour Party to its best electoral performance, with a record 37 Dáil seats.

Labour entered into a coalition government with Fine Gael, with Gilmore being appointed Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Throughout 2012, he held the role of Chairperson-In-Office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Born in County Galway, Gilmore graduated from University College Galway (UCG), becoming President of the Union of Students in Ireland.

Later, he entered local politics and worked as a trade union organiser.

As a Democratic Left TD, he helped to negotiate that party's merger with Labour.

As Minister for Foreign Affairs he led Ireland's seventh presidency of the European Council during the first half of 2013.

He is also the European Union Special Envoy for the Colombian Peace Process since 2015.

He serves as European Union Special Representative for Human Rights since February 2019.