{"id":60464,"date":"2025-10-04T05:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T05:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/60464\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T05:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T05:33:07","slug":"serious-questions-about-release-of-details-relating-to-ursula-ni-shionnain-connolly-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/60464\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Serious questions&#8217; about release of details relating to Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain, Connolly says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Presidential candidate Catherine Connolly has said that there are \u201cserious questions\u201d about the release of details related to her attempt to hire a woman with a firearms conviction.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain (41) pleaded not guilty to possession of arms and ammunition in Tullybeg, Rahan, Co Offaly. She was found guilty at a sitting of the Special Criminal Court and jailed for six years.<\/p>\n<p>She served almost four and a half years of her sentence. It is understood that Ms N\u00ed Shionnain was a former member of the political party, \u00c9ir\u00edg\u00ed.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Red FM during a visit to Cork on Friday, Ms Connolly said that there are \u201cserious questions to be asked as to how this (the attempted hiring of Ms N\u00ed Shionnain) became a public story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere do privacy rights come in to how this was released? Who released this, for what benefit, and if somebody or an entity wants to get me in to trouble, surely an innocent person shouldn\u2019t be used? Whatever about trying to damage me, which is another matter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ms Connolly admitted that it had upset her that Ms N\u00ed Shionnain found herself in the media spotlight due to her connection with her.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is a story here. How can society tolerate that and how is that allowed to happen, just to damage me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She stated that the \u201cconsequences of what has happened are quite serious for our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the independent presidential candidate said that Ms N\u00ed Shionnain was recommended to her.<\/p>\n<p>She insisted that she was informed that Ms Ni Shionnain was trying to get back in to employment following the completion of her prison sentence.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"not-prose no-underline\" data-action=\"click\" data-category=\"Read more article clicked\" data-label=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/government-must-prepare-for-irish-unity-catherine-connolly-says-1813489.html\" data-value=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/government-must-prepare-for-irish-unity-catherine-connolly-says-1813489.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2-81713963-e1758604942760.jpg\" class=\"rounded-sm object-contain bg-transparent z-10 w-full h-full not-prose\" alt=\"Government Must Prepare For Irish Unity, Catherine Connolly Says\" width=\"278\" height=\"156\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        Ireland<\/p>\n<p>Government must prepare for Irish unity, Catherine Connolly says<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ms Connolly said that she was aware of the background of Ms N\u00ed Shionnain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew her background. I knew that the Special Criminal Court had found her guilty, and, of course I had perhaps questions and then I went and sought advice from people who were hugely experienced in visiting prisoners and prisons and she came with high recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don\u2019t think there are questions in relation to my judgement. \u00c9ir\u00edg\u00ed Is a registered political party. My understanding is that she was no longer active in that party and my understanding \u2014 which has been borne out \u2014 is that she had turned a corner.<\/p>\n<p>This is a person who had served her sentence, turned the corner, went on to further her education within the prison and continued it afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Presidential candidate Catherine Connolly has said that there are \u201cserious questions\u201d about the release of details related to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-60464","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\/60464","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=60464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}