I was born at my mother’s insistence in Northern Ireland in 1965 into a family with a long established background in public and political life in the Republic of Ireland. I don’t recall having any difficulties academically and actively sought to develop all the skills necessary to follow my dad into politics from quite early on. Privately, I started writing at 16 but to follow a more conventional path, I studied Law & Politics at University in Galway and in many ways to shield my identity at the time. In 1990 I followed my father Brendan McGahon, a colourful if controversial member of the Irish Parliament, of whom I am immensely proud and became the fifth generation of my family to be elected to public office as a County Councillor at the age of 25 and the youngest local politician in Ireland. A year later I qualified as a Solicitor and rapidly realised that I had made a mistake and was ill suited to the profession to which I had dedicated my future. About 1995, for various reasons and through the helpful guidance of several influences I became a practising Mahayana Buddhist and vegetarian and took the first step along my own Road less travelled, in more ways than one! In 1997 I was elected the youngest chairman of Dundalk Urban District Council as my public profile gathered momentum, but by 1998 due to mounting personal conflict and professional difficulties beyond my skill, I experienced one of those “life changing situations” we always believe only happens to someone else and which literally flung me out of my world, my profession and in many ways my whole identity.
I withdrew from practice and public life the same year and moved to Northern Ireland where I was given safe haven by a kindly if unlikely benefactor, the multi-millionaire businessman and then Irish Senator, Dr. Edward Haughey, now Lord Ballyedmond, a member of the British House of Lords for whom I worked as a legal advisor in the Pharmaceutical Industry.
From 2000 onwards I became an Employment Tribunal Advocate specialising in Discrimination Law.
If I ever doubted there was magic in the world, it certainly changed when in 2001, I met Ed, my partner and in 2005 we moved to Spain. In 2006 we entered into a Civil Partnership in Belfast City Hall and now live on the Straits of Gibraltar overlooking Morocco and when the sea mists clear, the Atlas and Rif mountain range of North Africa. What I have come to believe in, is that anything is possible.
In 2008 I became a graduate of the Hoffman Institute.
In 2009 I took an Arvon Foundation course and began writing again.
What am I interested in? The future!
