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 elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

(MEP) from

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

for the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

constituency since July 2009. He is a member of

Fine Gael Fine Gael (, ; English: "Family (or Tribe) of the Irish") is a liberal-conservative and 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 � ...

, part of the

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

. He served as the 34th

President of the Gaelic Athletic Association The president of the Gaelic Athletic Association ( ga, Uachtarán Cumann Lúthchleas Gael) 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 ...

from 2003 to 2006. He was the first person from

County Kerry County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...

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 () is a beachhead and civil parish on the northern coast of County Mayo in Ireland. Traditionally a fishing community, the Kilcummin area is sparsely populated. The "Tír Sáile - North Mayo Sculpture Trail" and "Tour d'Humbert" tour ...

, Killarney,

in 1952. He was born into a family that was deeply involved in the Gaelic Athletic Association. 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 Kerry or Kerri may refer to: * Kerry (name), a given name and surname of Gaelic origin (including a list of people with the name) Places * Kerry, Queensland, Australia * County Kerry, Ireland ** Kerry Airport, an international airport in County ...

in their All-Ireland Championship success over

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

in 1953. He is a first cousin to

Fionnuala O'Kelly Fionnuala Bríd Kenny (; born 1 March 1956) is an Irish public relations specialist who is the wife of former Taoiseach Enda Kenny. She is a former press officer for the Fianna Fáil Party. In March 1987, Kenny became the first woman to head t ...

, 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 the nomination of 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 from May to July 2014 and 2016 to 2017, Leader of the Opposition from ...

. Kelly was educated at Kilcummin National School, Tralee CBS and

St Brendan's College, Killarney St Brendan's College, known locally as The Sem, is a secondary school in Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland History St Brendan's is a Catholic Diocesan College, founded in 1860 by Bishop David Moriarty as a boarding and day-school for boys under ...

. He qualified as a primary school teacher in

St Patrick's College of Education St Patrick's College ( ga, Coláiste Phádraig), often known as St Pat's, was a third level institution in Ireland, the leading function of which was as the country's largest primary teacher training college, which had at one time up to 2,000 s ...

, Drumcondra and then attended

University College Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland ...

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

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

(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. Originally introduced as a second-tier competition, it is currently the third tier overall in the inter-county hurling championship system. Eac ...

and Nicky Rackard Cup,

Tommy Murphy Cup The Tommy Murphy Cup was a Gaelic football competition, featuring senior county teams eliminated from the early stages of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and also Kilkenny when not fielding a team in the main All-Ireland. The series ...

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

Croke Park Croke Park ( ga, Páirc an Chrócaigh, ) 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 he ...

re-development through the completion of

Hill 16 Hill 16 – officially called Dineen Hill 16 and sometimes referred to as The Hill – is a terrace at the Railway End of Croke Park, the principal stadium and headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). It is located on the Northsi ...

/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. 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) ( ga, Cumann Rugbaí na hÉireann) 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 ...

and the Football Association of Ireland while Lansdowne Road was being re-developed. He has received a string of awards including Person of the Year 2005, Community Entrepreneur of the Year 2006, Business Person of the month (April 2005) and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Dublin Institute of Technology 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 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent some 500 million Europeans, making th ...

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 previously served as a Senator for the Industrial and Commercial Panel from 20 ...

. Kelly is a member of the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the 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 adopts ...

Committee on Industry, Research and Energy The Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) is a committee of the European Parliament. Its areas of responsibility relate to industry, especially technology-intensive manufacturing, information technology, and telecommunications. It also ...

, 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. He is a member of the delegation for relations with

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

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

ASEAN ASEAN ( , ), officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, militar ...

. In 2013, Kelly served as rapporteur for the ITRE Committee on

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

Vice President Viviane Reding's proposals for the overhaul of the Data Protection system across the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

. He later represented the

at the

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Conve ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and at the

2016 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2016 United Nations Climate Change Conference was an international meeting of political leaders and activists to discuss environmental issues. It was held in Marrakech, Morocco, on 7–18 November 2016. The conference incorporated the twen ...

Marrakesh Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakes ...

Kelly has been highly active since entering the Parliament, having spoken in the plenary session 529 times and tabled over 340 parliamentary questions as of February 2013. 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, from 22 to 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 fielded candid ...

. 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 which is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The time offset from UTC can be written as UTC+01:00. It is used in most parts of Europe and in a few North African countries. CET i ...

instead of its present, closer to solar time,

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, shortly called GMT). It is one of the three standard time zones in the Europea ...

. In December 2020, Kelly received the Industry, Research & Innovation award at '' The Parliament Magazines annual

MEP Awards ''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 ...

. Kelly is known for his frequent use of the

Irish Language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

in the European Parliament. In January 2022, he submitted the first amendment to EU legislation that was written in the Irish Language.

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 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