Seán Kelly (born 26 April 1952) is an Irish politician who has been a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

(MEP) from

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

for the

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constituency since July 2009. He is a member of

Fine Gael Fine Gael ( ; ; ) is a centre-right, liberal-conservative, Christian democratic political party in Ireland. Fine Gael is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil Éireann. The party had a member ...

, part of the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian democracy, Christian democratic, liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative, and conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other p ...

. He served as the 34th

President of the Gaelic Athletic Association The president of the Gaelic Athletic Association () is the head of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). The president holds office for three years. The role of president has existed since the foundation of the GAA. The president of the GAA is ...

from 2003 to 2006. He was the first person from

County Kerry County Kerry () is a Counties of Ireland, county on the southwest coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. It is bordered by two other countie ...

to hold the office, being elected at his first attempt by a record margin at the GAA Congress in 2002. In July 2006, he took up the position of Executive Chairman of the Irish Institute of Sport, a body that was set up in

to support elite athletes and players, and served as Executive President until he announced his resignation in July 2008.

Early and personal life

Kelly was born in Knockataggle,

Kilcummin Kilcummin (from the Irish 'Cill Chuimín', meaning 'church of St. Cummin') may refer to: * Kilcummin, County Kerry, Ireland, a village near Killarney * Kilcummin, County Mayo, Ireland, a beachhead and civil parish * Kilcummin, Queensland, Aust ...

Killarney Killarney ( ; , meaning 'church of sloes') is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is on the northeastern shore of Lough Leane, part of Killarney National Park, and is home to St Mary's Cathedral, Killar ...

in 1952. He was born into a family that was deeply involved in the

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports o ...

(GAA). His grandfather had been chairman of the local club and his four uncles had distinguished playing careers, with his uncle, also Seán Kelly, starring at full-forward for Kerry in their All-Ireland SFC victory against

Armagh Armagh ( ; , , " Macha's height") is a city and the county town of County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All ...

in the 1953 final. He is a first cousin to Fionnuala O'Kelly, wife of former

Taoiseach The Taoiseach (, ) is the head of government or prime minister of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The office is appointed by the President of Ireland upon nomination by Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's national legisl ...

Enda Kenny Enda Kenny (born 24 April 1951) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach from 2011 to 2017, Leader of Fine Gael from 2002 to 2017, Minister for Defence (Ireland), Minister for Defence from May to July 2014 and 2016 to 201 ...

. Kelly was educated at Kilcummin National School,

Tralee Tralee ( ; , ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the River Lee') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in ...

CBS and St Brendan's College, Killarney. He qualified as a primary school teacher in St Patrick's College of Education, Drumcondra and then attended

University College Dublin University College Dublin (), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

where he received a BA in 1974 and Higher Diploma in Education (HDip) in 1975. He worked as a teacher in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

(Cromcastle Green, Kilmore West) and in St. Brendan's, Killarney.

GAA career

Before being elected president of the GAA he served as chairman of the East Kerry from 1975 to 1987 and County Kerry Boards from 1987 to 1997 and Munster Council from 1997 to 2000. He also was one of the founding members of the St Patrick's (East Kerry) hurling team in 1984. As county chairman, he founded the Kerry GAA Supporters' Club in 1987. As the first person from County Kerry to hold the office of

, his presidency is seen as a landmark one in moving forward the Association on so many fronts with the introduction of

Christy Ring Cup The Christy Ring Cup () is an annual hurling competition organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association. The cup forms the third-tier of Hurling for senior county teams (the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship is the first-tier trophy). It is ...

and

Nicky Rackard Cup The Nicky Rackard Cup (; often referred to as the Rackard Cup) is an annual hurling competition organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association. The cup forms the fourth-tier of Hurling for senior county teams (the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Champi ...

, Tommy Murphy Cup, All-Ireland Junior and Intermediate Championships, he also oversaw the completion of the

Croke Park Croke Park (, ) is a Gaelic games stadium in Dublin, Ireland. Named after Archbishop Thomas Croke, it is referred to as Croker by GAA fans and locals. It serves as both the principal national stadium of Ireland and headquarters of the Gaelic At ...

re-development through the completion of Hill 16/Northern end and the building of the Croke Park Jury's Hotel. He introduced the President's Awards and developed a great working relationship with the GPA and initiated major improvements in player welfare matters. Concluding his career in the GAA he published an autobiography in 2007, titled "Rule 42 and all that". He is also credited with the successful conclusion of arrangements for the use of Croke Park, the GAA's 82,500 capacity national stadium, by the

Irish Rugby Football Union The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) () is the body managing rugby union in the island of Ireland (both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland). The IRFU has its head office at 10/12 Lansdowne Road and home ground at Aviva Stadium, where a ...

and the

Football Association of Ireland The Football Association of Ireland (FAI; ) is the governing body for association football in the Republic of Ireland. Organisation The FAI has an executive committee of five members under the president, who receive expenses, as well as a p ...

while

Lansdowne Road Lansdowne Road Stadium (, ) was a stadium in Dublin owned by the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) that was primarily used for rugby union and association football matches. The stadium was demolished in 2007 to make way for the Aviva Stadium on ...

was being re-developed. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by

Dublin Institute of Technology Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT, ) was a major third-level institution in Dublin, Ireland. On 1 January 2019 DIT was dissolved and its functions were transferred to the Technological University Dublin, as TU Dublin City Campus. The insti ...

in February 2007.

Political career

Seán Kelly was elected as a

candidate at the

2009 European Parliament election The 2009 European Parliament election was held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009. A total of 736 Member of the European Parliament, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent s ...

for the

constituency, at the expense of sitting MEP and party colleague

Colm Burke Colm Burke (born 17 January 1957) is an Irish Fine Gael politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cork North-Central since the 2020 general election. He served as Minister of State at the Department of Health from 2024 to 2025, a Sen ...

. Kelly is a member of the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

Committee on Industry, Research and Energy A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

, the

Committee on International Trade The Committee on International Trade (INTA) is a committee of the European Parliament. Its current chair, elected on 10 July 2019, is Bernd Lange.Committee on Constitutional Affairs The Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) is a committee of the European Parliament dealing with institutional matters such as revisions to the Treaties of the European Union, inter-institutional agreements, and the Parliament's internal rules ...

. He is a member of the delegation for relations with

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and he serves as a member of the Delegation for relations with the Countries of

South East Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

and

ASEAN The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, commonly abbreviated as ASEAN, is a regional grouping of 10 states in Southeast Asia "that aims to promote economic and security cooperation among its ten members." Together, its member states r ...

. Kelly was elected MEP of the Year for Research and Innovation by fellow MEPs for his work on the European Parliament's ITRE Committee in 2012. Kelly is a recipient of IAB Europe's Award for Leadership and Excellence in Public Policy for his work on data protection. He had been mentioned as a possible Fine Gael candidate for the 2011 presidential election. He was re-elected as an MEP for the South constituency at the

2014 European Parliament election The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 22 and 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties field ...

. Kelly has lobbied to end the bi-annual clock change in the EU, but is in favour of Ireland's adoption of year-round summertime or

Central European Time Central European Time (CET) is a standard time of Central, and parts of Western Europe, which is one hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The UTC offset, time offset from UTC can be written as UTC+01:00. It is used in most parts of Eur ...

instead of its present, closer to

solar time Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Traditionally, there are three types of time reckoning based ...

Western European Time Western European Time (WET, UTC+00:00) is a time zone covering parts of western Europe and consists of countries using UTC+00:00 (also known as Greenwich Mean Time, abbreviated GMT). It is one of the three standard time zones in the European Uni ...

, which is precisely the most detrimental time arrangement to human health according to recent chronobiological studies. In December 2020, Kelly received the Industry, Research & Innovation award at ''

The Parliament Magazine ''The Parliament Magazine'' is a monthly EU politics, policy and culture magazine. Its website, www.theparliamentmagazine.eu, is a forum for discussion on the latest developments in EU politics and policy, featuring regular contributions from pr ...

s annual MEP Awards. Kelly is known for his frequent use of the

Irish Language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...

in the European Parliament. In January 2022, he submitted the first amendment to EU legislation that was written in the Irish Language. Kelly ran for re-election at the

2024 European Parliament election in Ireland The 2024 European Parliament election in Ireland is the Irish component of the 2024 European Parliament election and was held on Friday, 7 June 2024, the same day as the Irish local elections and Limerick mayoral election. Electoral system I ...

with running mate John Mullins. Kelly was re-elected on the first count, topping the poll with 122,777 (17.8%) first preference votes .

References

External links

Seán Kelly's page on the Fine Gael website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Sean 1952 births Living people Alumni of University College Dublin Alumni of St Patrick's College, Dublin Chairmen of Gaelic games governing bodies Fine Gael MEPs Founders of Gaelic games institutions Irish schoolteachers Irish sportsperson-politicians Kerry County Board administrators Kilcummin Gaelic footballers MEPs for the Republic of Ireland 2009–2014 MEPs for the Republic of Ireland 2014–2019 MEPs for the Republic of Ireland 2019–2024 MEPs for the Republic of Ireland 2024–2029 Munster Provincial Council administrators People educated at St Brendan's College, Killarney Politicians from County Kerry Presidents of the Gaelic Athletic Association St Patrick's (Kerry) hurlers People from Killarney 20th-century Irish sportsmen