John Concannon, ex-strategic communications chief, appointed Canada ambassador

John Concannon, the former head of a short-lived government strategic communications unit, has been appointed as the Irish ambassador to Canada.

Mr Concannon was also the driving force behind “The Gathering” in 2013, which mobilised the Irish diaspora to return to Ireland for “clan gatherings”.

He also ran Ireland’s official 1916 commemorations, and subsequently Creative Ireland, an ambitious cultural and wellbeing initiative that grew out of the 1916 commemorations.

In a varied career, the Sligo native has worked in marketing roles with Fáilte Ireland, Unilever, and Dubarry. In his subsequent career, he has worked with the University of Galway and as a public servant, most recently with the Department of Foreign Affairs.

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Mr Concannon is best known for The Gathering and for the strategic communications unit within the Department of an Taoiseach. The unit was disbanded following controversy over advertising material used for the Project Ireland 2040 plan, announced by the Leo Varadkar-led government in 2018 during his first term as taoiseach.

While a report by then secretary general of the Department of an Taoiseach Martin Fraser found that the unit did not politicise coverage of the plan, the unit was nonetheless abandoned by Mr Varadkar because it had become what he described a “distraction from the work of Government”.

Following the disbandment of the unit, Mr Concannon, who was of assistant secretary rank in the public service, became director general of Global Ireland in 2018, which had the brief of expanding Ireland’s global footprint, diplomatically and for enterprise. Global Ireland was a division of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The following year Mr Concannon took up a senior appointment with the University of Galway, as vice-president of development.

[ Strategic Communications Unit was ‘damaging’, review finds ]

Mr Concannon then played a key role alongside ambassador to the United Nations, Geraldine Byrne-Nason, in Ireland’s election to the Security Council in 2020.

Mr Concannon, as Ambassador to Canada, will be based in Ottawa but will also represent Ireland in Antigua & Barbuda, Jamaica and The Bahamas.

It will be his first official post as a diplomat in an embassy. Such a move is not unprecedented, with Mr Fraser appointed Irish ambassador to the United Kingdom after his term as secretary general came to an end.

The other ambassadorial appointments approved by Government on Tuesday were: Nicola Brennan (Tanzania); Gerard Considine (Liberia); Ruairí De Búrca (Mexico); Nicholas O’Brien (China); Mary O’Neill (Pakistan); Catherine Bannon (Bulgaria); Wendy Dorman-Smith (Croatia); Paul Sherlock (Finland); Maeve Collins (Germany); Ciara Ó Floinn (Greece); Julian Clare (Russia); Jonathan Conlon (Ukraine); Laoise Moore (Iran); and David Brück (OECD).