IRISH MP Maria Caulfield is already planning for St Patrick’s Day 2025 after a successful event saw Longford natives celebrating Ireland’s national day in Westminster earlier this month.
The Conservative MP for Lewes, whose parents moved from Ireland to England in the 1950s, invited members of the Longford Association (London) to celebrate St Patricks day in the State Rooms of the Speakers House in the Palace of Westminster this month.
Ms Caulfield, who still has family members living in Longford, also invited Irish Ambassador to Britain, Martin Fraser to attend the event, which was sponsored by the Irish in Britain organisation.
“It was a great occasion with plenty of Guinness, food and good craic,” Ms Caulfield’s office confirmed.
“Conversations and speeches were varied, but mainly was on everyone’s family journey, the love of Ireland and of course GAA,’ they added.
Speaking after the event, Ms Caulfield said: “It was lovely to welcome so many people to celebrate St Patrick’s day in a very special way this year.
“I met so many people who live near our family home and have already planned to meet up with them next time we are home.”
She added that she was “already planning next year’s event and hoping to make it even more memorable”.
Ms Caulfield was brought up in an Irish household in London, where she admits she spent her “evenings and weekends going to Irish dancing classes or a Feis”.
The MP, who has represented Lewes in East Sussex since 2015, says one of her most memorable St Patrick’s Day to date was when her school of Irish dancing performed at a “big St Patrick’s Day dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London”.
“It was very exciting as most of us had never been to such a posh place before and we got a standing ovation from all the dinner guests,” she admits.
She also claims that as children she and her brother looked forward to receiving packages of shamrock, Taytos and Kimberley biscuits from their relatives in Ireland to mark Ireland’s national day.