Preston’s Europeans: the Preston City Councillor bringing the luck of the Irish to the city’s politics

Councillor Naoimh McMahon was one of seventeen candidates to secure a seat on Preston City Council in the local election last Thursday (May 4).

First elected in 2022, the 35-year-old from County Clare in Ireland stands alone as being the only sitting councillor in Preston to come from another European country- a fact which Naoimh says helps her bring something different to the table.

Explaining how she came to be in Preston in the first place, Naoimh, who trained as a physiotherapist in Ireland originally, said a national block on public health service jobs when she graduated meant she had to look further afield for work.

Taking up a position as a Research Physiotherapist at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in 2013, Naoimh then completed her PhD there in 2019. Despite being a research fellow at Lancaster University since 2020, she still lives in Preston, citing how everyone she has met in the city have been “good decent people” with whom she’s had “positive experiences”.

She commented: “At UCLan, there's loads of Europeans but people stay, that's the really interesting thing about Preston. I don't think people treat it as a stepping stone, there's something about Preston that makes you want to stay… My other half is from Reading so we spend a lot of time down South, but the two of us are like ‘as long as Preston is good to us, we'll try and make a positive contribution here’.”

That this contribution would be political was never expected by Naoimh, as she explains: “My interest from physio expanded into public health. I would not have been political, historically, but when you start looking at public health and wider issues that sit outside of the health service, you start to realise that you can't avoid having political conversations.”

Naoimh joined the Labour Party in 2016 and was first elected as councillor for the Brookfield Ward in 2022 with 723 votes, a number which increased to 817 votes in 2023, ensuring her another four years in office.

During her political career in Preston, Naoimh says her highs have been “just getting small things done” and her interactions with residents, adding “The nicest thing for me is that people have been really patient and lovely. I was really wary, as I think lots of younger women coming into any sort of a public facing role are, of negativity or feeling a bit exposed, but people have been really respectful, really kind and I think actually, their expectations about what you can do are probably more on the money than mine.”

Despite noting she does not have the local connections or historical knowledge of many of her colleagues, Naoimh believes that coming from a different country, comes with other benefits in itself.

Socially, she says constituents seem to warm to her more because of her nationality, meaning it has allowed her to form unexpected connections with residents.

Naoimh said: “It's a nice icebreaker. So I forget that I'm Irish in Preston, but invariably, one of the first things people ask me on the phone or the doorstep is ‘where are you from? You’re obviously not Preston born and bred’ and so people like to tell you where they've been in Ireland or if they knew anybody in Ireland, and then it just starts a nice conversation about how I ended up here and how I ended up in the council role. I think it's a great nationality to have in different countries, because I would say, people generally have quite a positive perception of the Irish on the whole, plus I fit the cliche with the red hair and the accent!”

From a political standpoint, Naoimh believes that coming from a different place means she is able to look at the city with a different pair of eyes.

Naoimh explained: “I feel like I'm at a real disadvantage, but at the same time, it's a catch 22, I'd hate to be a councillor in the town that I grew up in because everybody knows you and they know your family – they saw you fall out of the pub drunk when you were younger. The lovely thing for me is I get to start with all the residents on a blank slate, we don't have any preconceived ideas of who people are or what they've done in the past, so I think that's an advantage.

“I'm also not so in the know as to what a building used to be or where there’s loads of issues around planning, so I guess, in some ways, I'm not as influenced by what's happened in the past, I just take things as they are today, but that's a disadvantage and advantage in lots of ways.”

Moving from the world of politics to entertainment, although the Eurovision Song Contest comes hot off the heels of Naoimh’s election, she does not appear as eager for an Irish win this time round.

When asked her opinion on the contest, Naoimh said: “I'm not a hardcore Eurovision fan, so I will follow it along in a pretty light touch way. I really remember Eurovision when I was younger, because Ireland had a really good spell, we won quite a few times, and it was very exciting. It's been interesting to see the evolution of Eurovision but in a really positive and fabulous way.”

To find out more about Councillor Naoimh McMahon visit her councillor page on Preston City Council’s website.