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ALL WALKS OF LIFE

All Walks of Life Image Name: All Walks of Life Description: All Walks of Life RTÉ One Friday February 14th Mary McAleese and Helen McEntee
All Walks of Life Image Name: All Walks of Life Description: All Walks of Life RTÉ One Friday February 14th Mary McAleese and Helen McEntee

HELEN McENTEE: Friday 14th of February 2020, RTÉ One, 8.30pm

Helen McEntee, Fine Gael’s Minister of State for Europe, talks about the impact of her late father’s suicide and the challenges that followed her decision to stand for his seat in the Dáil, particularly amidst the current Brexit turbulence. Helen walks St Féchín’s Way in Co. Westmeath with Mary.

St Féchín Way is named after the 7th century monk who established a Celtic monastery in Fore. It became a great centre of learning with 2000 students and 300 monks, and today the local community has created a beautiful looped walk winding its way around this ancient spiritual site.

As they set off on this tranquil path, Helen tell Mary about her upbringing on the farm, and helping her parents in the family run pub. ‘I was 15, going on 16, when we bought the pub’, Helen explains, ‘so I probably shouldn’t have been behind the bar pulling pints, but it was all hands-on-deck when we started. It was a life experience. It is a fantastic education; you develop an ability to talk to and engage with people’.

Helen’s father, Shane McEntee, was elected to the Dail in 2005 and became a Fine Gael Minister of State in 2012. In December 2012 Shane McEntee took his own life, after the government came under intense pressure for cutting public services. A few months later Helen decided to contest her father’s old Dail seat.

It’s now more than six years since her father died, and Helen still has a deep connection with him.

Preview Vimeo copy available on request