{"id":505507,"date":"2026-06-18T05:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T05:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/505507\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T05:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T05:14:24","slug":"cowboy-hats-and-summer-dresses-at-presidents-first-garden-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/505507\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboy hats and summer dresses at President\u2019s first garden party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Line dancers, Gaza students and GAA clubs attended the first garden party of Catherine Connolly\u2019s presidency on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

About 350 guests gathered in their finery to meet the president and mingle on a sunny June afternoon.<\/p>\n

Among the attendees were a group of women sporting sparkly cowboy hats, including Vera Hayes and Maureen Kelleher, from the Togher Family Centre in Cork, which Connolly visited in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Hayes said the centre was set up about 50 years ago and they have volunteered there for years.<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Catherine Connolly and her husband Brian McEnery at the garden party (Brian Lawless\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president came to our centre three weeks ago, and I actually said it to her, she was shaking my hand saying goodbye and I said, \u2018Don\u2019t forget us if you\u2019re having a garden party\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all said, \u2018what did you say\u2019, and on the Friday, we got it (the invite).\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelleher said Connolly is \u201ca lovely lady\u201d and is \u201cvery natural\u201d with people and was not in a hurry to \u201cgo away\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hayes added: \u201cWe did a line dancing exhibition for her when she was down in our centre, and she said, \u2018when you come to the \u00c1ras, you have to do a line dance. So we brought our hats.<\/p>\n

\"CatherineCatherine Connolly mingles with guests at the party (Brian Lawless\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019re hoping to get everybody on the floor. We\u2019re actually going to do the Galway Girl, because she got the Galway Freedom of the City on Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muriel Shiels, from the recently set up Dunleer Women\u2019s Shed in Co Louth, was also in attendance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re here because we\u2019re in the process of setting up a women\u2019s shed and we just wanted to meet other community groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt there was a need for a safe women\u2019s space, there is a very good active retirement group for men and women so we just wanted somewhere for women to come together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CatherineCatherine Connolly and Brian McEnery meeting performers ahead of the garden party (Brian Lawless\/PA)<\/p>\n

Asked about Connolly, she said: \u201cI think she\u2019s great, I think she\u2019s doing a great job. A great representative for Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Havana Club Trio performed, featuring young singer Daphne Hernandez, who was a recent finalist for Ireland in the Junior Eurovision competition.<\/p>\n

The band have played 32 times at \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in and said it was now feeling \u201clike home\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been amazing, the weather has been behaving, we always bring the weather,\u201d band member Tony Oscar said.<\/p>\n

\"It was Catherine Connolly\u2019s first presidential garden party (Brian Lawless\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s cool,\u201d he said of Ms Connolly.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the photo op and we were next to the president, she said we were looking good and asked, \u2018any spare Panama hat?\u2019 We promised her we would bring her one next week so she would look like one of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing the room, Connolly said it was a \u201cvery, very special occasion\u201d for her to host her first garden party.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am delighted to have had the opportunity to chat to you and I hope you have a wonderful and an enjoyable afternoon of music, dancing and celebration.<\/p>\n

She thanked the gardeners, the OPW, the protocol staff, the musicians, An Garda S\u00edochana, the aide-de-camp, the Civil Defence, and those who made the booklets for the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to wish you a very, very enjoyable afternoon and a safe journey home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The menu included pesto sandwiches, smoked salmon and vegetarian tartlets, and mini scones, cakes, biscuits and fruits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Line dancers, Gaza students and GAA clubs attended the first garden party of Catherine Connolly\u2019s presidency on Wednesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-505507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}