Meetin' the Taoiseach – a real handsome fella

One day in January, I got a call from my Local Enterprise Office. They asked me would I be free the following week to meet the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Me! Meeting the Taoiseach? I couldn't believe it, I was thrilled to bits. 

It was an amazing experience from start to finish. I was one of 9 businesses to meet the Taoiseach and Minister for Social Protection, Regina Doherty. The event was to kick off a campaign highlighting new benefits for business owners that were introduced in the new Budget. Besides the Taoiseach and Minister, there were loads of other people, including their advisers and staff, a few journalists and of course the staff at City Hall. I was so nervous meeting them, but I couldn't get over how lovely they all were. Even in the few minutes that I got to meet them, they put me at ease and chatted away, like old pals. 

The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar is a very tall and handsome fella and he smelt fab! For such an important man, he was very friendly, mannerly and down to earth, even shy. Basically, a son every Ma would love! I felt like I had just met somebody I knew all my life.

I wasn’t nervous to speak to him but felt grateful to be able to meet the leader of our country, to be able to speak about my business and to present him with his own quirky Irish Icons.

The whole experience was brilliant, but I was over the moon when I realised how much the Taoiseach enjoyed his gift. He even suggested that I “need to be in the airport with these!” and named Quirky Irish Icons as one of his favourite business at the end of the day.

The highlight of the day was presenting the Taoiseach with a handmade gift from Quirky Irish Icons for his office. I'm dying to see a photo of him in his office soon with my quirky Irish icons hanging on the wall.