A keen musician, an author and long-serving politician: Introducing Cork’s new Lord Mayor Dan Boyle

IT hasn’t been a great week for the Green Party, losing as it did its leader and deputy leader, but Cork looks set to offer it some sunshine. 

At its AGM last night, Cork City Council elected Green Party councillor, Dan Boyle, as the new Lord Mayor. 

Born in Chicago in 1962, in 1991 he became the first Green Party member of Cork City Council, and now has made history as Leeside’s first Green Lord Mayor.

Elected to Dáil Éireann for Cork South Central in 2022, he was party whip and finance spokesperson until he lost his seat in 2007. 

He helped negotiate the deal which brought the Greens into government in 2007, and he was nominated to the Seanad by then taoiseach Bertie Ahern. 

An early adopter of Twitter, his was a prominent voice during the Greens’ time in office.

He ran, unsuccessfully, for Europe in 2009, and for both the Dáil and Seanad in 2011. 

In 2014, he failed in a bid to return to Cork City Council, but he was elected to City Hall in 2019 and earlier this month he was re-elected.

The author of three books, he is also a keen musician, and in 2011 he released an album called ‘Third Adolescence’.

This week, in the wake of Green Party leader Eamon Ryan’s decision to stand down, a picture from 2002 did the rounds, showing Mr Ryan, Mr Boyle, recently defeated former MEP Ciaran Cuffe, and then party leader Trevor Sargent chained to a tree in Dublin’s O’Connell Street. 

With Mr Ryan not standing at the next election, and the other two already gone from public office, Mr Boyle, wearing a different type of chain now, might be tempted to sing a bar two of Tom Waits’ ‘I’m the Last Leaf on the Tree’.

A likeable and popular figure during his 16 years in City Hall, he says he has “only” waited to wear the chain through all of the 33 years since his first election.

His deputy lord mayor, first-time councillor for Cork City South East Honore Kamegni has already made history as the first black person to be elected to City Hall.

A father of two, he came to Ireland seeking asylum from his native Cameroon in 2002. 

He has worked in Douglas and Rochestown as a postman for the past 14 years, and knowledge of that beat no doubt served him well during his year-long canvass.

When he was elected earlier this month, Mr Kamegni told The Echo that he had been inspired to run when he saw a video of a meeting of Cork City Council, deciding there and then that it could use a bit of diversity.