Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Michael Healy-Rae (second from right), visited Latvia on his St Patrick’s Day mission, where he met with the country’s Irish Ambassador, Mountnugent native Marcella Smyth (centre). Both attended an event hosted by Combilift. The Monaghan company’s technology is used in all major Latvian industrial and port operations to improve efficiency and safety in material handling.

Counties send delegations across the Atlantic

Cavan chair to visit MIT's McGovern Institute.

Seamus Enright

Published: Tue 17 Mar 2026, 3:29 PM

Last updated: Tue 17 Mar 2026, 3:33 PM

Cathaoirleach of Cavan County Council, John Paul Feeley, is set to visit the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT on the anniversary of its founder Patrick J. McGovern’s death.

The leading neuroscience research centre, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was founded in 2000 by Mr. McGovern, a second-generation Irish American with grandparents from Counties Mayo and Cavan, together with his wife, Lore Harp McGovern. Their philanthropic gift to establish the institute is estimated at $350 million.

Mr McGovern passed away in 2014, but during his visit, Cllr Feeley will meet one of the philanthropist’s surviving children.

Cllr Feeley is part of a three-person delegation from Cavan County Council who travelled to the United States in time for St Patrick’s Day. The delegation’s itinerary includes attending a traditional breakfast in New York with the Cavan P & B Association and participating in the Boston parade, where they marched alongside Monaghan Cathaoirleach PJ O’Hanlon and Monaghan vice-chair Richard Truell.

The Monaghan delegation is completed by Chief Executive Robert Burns, Director of Services Olga McConnon, and Curator of Monaghan Museum Liam Bradley, while Cavan is represented by Chief Executive Eoin Doyle and Director of Services Paddy Connaughton.

Cllr Feeley will also attend an official function in Hartford, Connecticut.

Meanwhile, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment with responsibility for Trade Promotion, Niamh Smyth, is in Florida. Her itinerary includes St. Augustine - the site of the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in the US - DeLand, where she will visit Kingspan’s facilities, before stops in Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, and Tampa.

Last year, she visited Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia, where Mountnugent native Marcella Smyth serves as ambassador after a four-year posting as Consul General in Los Angeles.

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Healy-Rae, is this year visiting Latvia, Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania.

Ireland’s Ambassador to Estonia is James Sherry, a Monaghan native who has previously served in Ireland’s embassies in Malawi, Zambia, and Norway.