Liz O’Donnell talks about life after politics

Former Progressive Democrats politician Liz O’Donnell is perhaps best known for the role she played in negotiating the Good Friday agreement. Yet she wasn’t invited to any of the banquets – or other functions – during one of the most significant events in Anglo-Irish relations: April’s State visit to Britain. And how does she feel about that?

“Well, neither was Blair,” she exclaims gracefully, though obviously disappointed. “That happens in governments. It was a long time ago. It was 1998.”

But surely BOD and Hubes didn’t deserve an invitation before her? “Well, they’re current heroines and heroes,” she reasons, smiling. “Listen, things move on. The current Government decides who goes to those events. I noticed Tony Blair wasn’t there either, which seemed extraordinary. I thought as a former prime minister he should have been there, and I thought the former Taoisigh should have been there as well, but then John Bruton wasn’t there. So where does it end?”

Liz says she still feels responsible for the North.

“I don’t look at it in a glorious way. When I see the protests on the flags, and emblems and the marching still going on, the past hasn’t really been settled and even the whole issue of Jean McConville and the Disappeared – there’s a lot that hasn’t been solved and put to bed. I still worry about the North.”

Early days

Liz was born in Dublin, “sort of a child of Guinness, of the brewery, because my father worked for Guinness his whole life, so we lived on the Infirmary Road in Dublin”.

When she was 11, her father was transferred to Limerick so Liz went to secondary school at the Salesians Convent in Fernbank. After completing the Leaving Cert, she took off for London.

“As was my wont – I wanted to see another culture.”

She returned to Ireland at the age of 21, “eventually conformed to the norm”, to the delight of her parents, and went to Trinity to study law, where Brian Lenihan was in her class. She loved it.

“It was very much taught as part of the humanities, very wide-ranging and not taught as being geared towards being a solicitor or barrister, which suited me.”

Although Liz went on to work in the profession, she says she was “a reluctant lawyer, really”.

Politics didn’t immediately strike her. In fact, she says she didn’t become politicised until she had children and came out of the workforce. It was then that she “began to notice”.

“I think it’s just when you face the dilemma of small children and work or not to work or how to work and balance – that’s when I started to notice that there were such few women in political life.”

Entering politics

Liz’s first political engagement was working as a volunteer for Mary Robinson. She then got involved in the Women’s Political Association, which was a cross-party group of women who wanted more women in political life. This saw her on the organising committee for a conference at which Mary Harney came to speak, and as soon as Mary Harney met her, she set her “evil eye” on her, as Liz puts it.

“She just kind of really focused in on me and started asking me questions. She said: ‘Why are you involved in this women’s organisation when you could be elected?’ It was literally the first time anyone had suggested it to me.

“She said to me: ‘What’s wrong with you? If you’re so supportive of women in politics, what’s going on with you?’ So I began to think about that. I said: ‘Am I being genuine about women in politics if I’m not prepared to do it myself?’,” she says.

It’s hard to believe the person who would later be so instrumental in the establishment of the Good Friday agreement had to be convinced into politics. But she could never have expected that saying yes to Mary Harney would lead her to such a position.

“I was Minister of State at Foreign Affairs but I wasn’t dealing with the North because the North wasn’t active in that sense, but I got a call from Mary Harney saying: ‘You’re looking after it.’ Summer was coming up so it was like studying for an exam in September. I said: ‘OK, I’m just going to learn this stuff.’”

Economic troubles

But the Good Friday agreement wasn’t the only legacy left by the Fianna Fáil/PD Government. Liz doesn’t take much responsibility for the role the PDs played in the collapse of the economy.

“During the period when I was in Government, I think there was a sense of ... the danger of the property collapse. We weren’t conscious of the banking collapse. I mean, that’s something that really came later.

“Certainly there was reckless lending going on but we were never warned ... that the banks were dangerously close to collapse ... There were very few people predicting doom, you know. I think most people felt the economy was maybe going to cool down, but nobody expected the crash and that’s the thing about crashes, that’s essentially what they are, unexpected collapses of systems and system failure ... But it has been a very democratic recession, everyone’s lost loads of money – rich and poor.”

Liz’s political career ended abruptly in 2007 when she lost her seat in the general election. In the immediate aftermath, her mother had a stroke.

“Suddenly I didn’t give a hoot about politics. I was totally focused on my mother and I watched the formation of the next Government from the stroke unit in St Camillus’ in Limerick.”

If she had been re-elected, how would she have coped, juggling work and such serious family concerns?

“Well, this is it – you just keep doing it because you have to. But as it happened, I had more time to spend with my mother [who has sadly since passed], and I had more time to spend with my father; he died in 2009. I wasn’t living like a train, which is what it’s like. And I think you have to be thrown off the train; I don’t think I could have disembarked voluntarily.”

Not long after she left politics, Liz filmed a five-part RTÉ series in Africa, called Far Away Up Close. Upon returning home, she was invited to be an adviser to the retail industry, and she now does a mix of advisory work and also writes a column in the Irish Independent.

“I’m enjoying my column because before that I was just shouting at the radio in my kitchen,” she says.

Liz is also a director of Chernobyl Children International (CCI) and each year she fundraises for CCI by hosting a corporate event, Liz’s Lunch.

But does she miss politics?

“I do miss the substance of politics. It’s a very rewarding and challenging career and it’s intellectually satisfying. And it’s important, so it’s a meaningful life and I miss that, but at the same time I feel I needed a break from it,” she says.

Many people see Liz O’Donnell as President material but she says she has no intentions to run, although she was previously approached.

“It would be a huge privilege to be the President of Ireland but my political career is over. I’m not in a party anymore and I’ve kind of closed the door on politics now.”

But would she enjoy being President? “Well it’s a big house, all right. I don’t know – I’d be rattling around it on my own with my dog.”

She also explains she would rather be a politician than President.

“It’s a sort of a very dignified head-of-state position, it’s honorary and it’s ceremonial really in many ways, but I’m much more operational, and you can’t be political when you’re the President.”

As a very successful politician, Liz has interesting advice for would-be politicians, particularly women.

“I think the most important thing is to be able to make a decision – don’t ever sit on the fence. Be able to consider something, take a position, and then defend it, and not back-stride from it.”

Being a glamorous woman in Irish politics, it’s not surprising Liz received a lot of attention – much of it unwanted. She identifies female journalists as the main culprits in this regard.

“They were more willing to remark on our gender than men would. I rarely got involved in any discussion about fashion or clothes, or anything like that.

“I just think women have to be careful about going down that road. It’s far better to keep your focus on your work and be quoted for the substance of what you’re saying on political issues rather than what colour lipstick you wear or what colour coat you like.”