One of our own at the heart of Biden’s administration

The call came through dead on time; Emma Eatman from the Secretary of Labour’s Press team called on the button. As she said – 9am Eastern Standard Time.

The Labour Secretary was busier than expected. My interview would be delayed until 9.30.  He has another interview at 9.15.  That will be 15 minutes. We are now down to 15 minutes ourselves (from 25), give or take a few minutes.

Emma comes back on the button again from San Antonio, Texas.  She will patch me through to Secretary Walsh.  I have 15 minutes but enough to ask how his mom, Mary, and all the Walsh and O’Malley clan are.

“All good, thank God – how are things in Connemara”?

Marty Walsh is now the Secretary of Labour in President Biden’s Government in Washington DC – and he readily admits he has found it a big change.

Once there was Boston and a host of towns, streets, highways and by-ways that he was familiar with.  Now it’s a big country.

Secretary Walsh reels off the names of States far and wide that he had been to in recent weeks: Wisconsin, Tennessee, Maryland, Pennsylvania, the Midwest – towns and cities along the trail.  This morning he is in his Boston office.  Tomorrow it’s Washington DC.

Read the full exclusive interview with Marty Walsh – his first with an Irish newspaper since taking up office – in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in all shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie