Miriam O'Callaghan (speechwriter)

Miriam O'Callaghan
Occupation Speechwriter
Notable credit(s) Enda Kenny's chief speechwriter

Miriam O'Callaghan is a speechwriter and former journalist. Her speeches use an emotional style.[1] She has worked with Taoiseach Enda Kenny since he was in opposition. When he became Taoiseach, she became his chief speechwriter,[2] writing many of Kenny's most recognised speeches, including his apology to survivors of the Magdalene Laundries and his speech on the Cloyne Report.[1] According to Sam Smyth, her “infamous" speech used by Kenny to welcome U.S. president Barack Obama to Dublin in 2011, which led to a dispute over plagiarism, “drew attention to the role of speechwriters in Government Buildings in Dublin -- a secretive process that successive governments have sheltered from the media and the public”. [3]

She wrote a hagiographic piece for the Sunday Independent shortly after the 2016 general election, praising Kenny as well as European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and German chancellor Angela Merkel.[2] Julien Mercille criticised it as poorly written and contested her claim that Kenny was a “feminist intellectual".[4]

She also wrote Kenny's tribute to Seamus Heaney.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 Examiner: Enda owes finest hour to more than one speech writer
  2. 1 2 Sunday Independent - Enda, my boss, the feminist intellectual
  3. ↑ Irish Independent - Senior adviser to Taoiseach blamed for controversy
  4. ↑ Broadsheet.ie - Mercille On Monday
  5. ↑ Enda Kenny’s poetic tribute to Seamus Heaney is quite moving
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