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12/09/18 2018 Tip O’Neill Irish Diaspora Award recipients

Martin O Malley

Former Governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley who will be awarded the 2018 Tip O’Neill Irish Diaspora Award at a special ceremony in the Inishowen Gateway Hotel on Friday night.

 

With the gala ceremony for the Tip O’Neill Irish Diaspora Awards just days away, it’s an opportune time to find out a little bit more about this year’s award recipients. 

 

Last but by no means least is Former Governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley who is thrilled to be named as a recipient of this year’s award.  Having grown up in a Washington suburb close to the centre of political life and in a home where politics was always on the agenda O’Malley describes being chosen as a recipient of this year’s award as a ‘great honour’.

 

O’Malley who traces his Irish ancestry back to his great grandparents when they emigrated from Galway to the US in the late 1870’s commends the work being done by Donegal County Council through its Diaspora project.   He believes that the world needs to be more connected and that this can only benefit everyone creating greater security and prosperity for our children and for future generations saying “making these connections through the homes of our grandparents and our great grandparents is truly special”. 

 

A keen musician, O’Malley has carved out a remarkable political career which saw him elected Mayor of Baltimore in 1999 at the age of 36 and Time Magazine soon named him one of the top five big city mayors in America. Later as Governor of Maryland, Governing Magazine named him Public Official of the Year and when he ran for President the United States in 2016, Washingtonian Magazine called him, “the best manager in government today.”

 

Martin O Malley young

A young Martin O’Malley (on far right) sharing the stage with the great Tip O’Neill in 1980.

 

Elected to Baltimore City Council at the age of 28 in 1991, Martin O’Malley was elected Mayor of Baltimore in 1999 and then re-elected to a second term with 88% of the vote.  In that role, he won Harvard University’s Innovation in American Government Award for creating, “Citistat” — a new system of performance managed government that has been widely adopted by other cities in the Information Age.

 

Elected Governor of Maryland in 2007, he not only led Maryland through the Recession with a faster rate of job growth than neighbouring states, but for the first time ever, Maryland was recognised for five consecutive years as having the best public schools in the country, and one of the best states at holding down the cost of higher education.

 

In 2013, O’Malley led the successful fight to ban the sale of combat assault weapons in Maryland, while also driving violent crime in Maryland down to 35-year lows and the incarceration rate to 20-year lows.

 

As Governor, he introduced and signed marriage equality into law, abolished the death penalty, and passed the Maryland DREAM Act expanding the opportunity of a college education to the children of New American immigrants.

 

Tip O’Neill Irish Diaspora Awards will be presented at a special ceremony on Friday 14th September in the Inishowen Gateway Hotel at 7pm and tickets are available for purchase from bit.ly/TipONeill

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