On the second day of his landmark bilateral visit to the Republic of Ireland, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney traded formal diplomatic meetings for a deeply personal journey to County Mayo on Sunday, tracing the roots of his family’s Irish ancestry ahead of high-stakes talks at next week’s G7 Summit.
Fresh off Saturday’s working session with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin in Dublin, Carney traveled west to Aughagower, the quiet rural village where his maternal grandparents Robert and Nora Moran built their lives before emigrating to Canada in 1925. There, he met more than 20 of his extended Irish cousins, including his father’s first cousins Maureen O’Malley and Pat Carney — the oldest living members of his Irish family branch.
Sunday opened with an official meeting between Carney and Irish President Catherine Connolly at Westport House, where the pair discussed bilateral ties and global affairs. Speaking to Irish public broadcaster RTÉ ahead of the June G7 gathering in France, Carney confirmed that reinforcing a potential long-term ceasefire between the United States and Iran would top the summit’s agenda. He added that he has been encouraged by recent progress toward the truce, signaling strong diplomatic momentum ahead of the meeting.
Beyond diplomatic discussions, Carney’s day was filled with intimate ancestral traditions. Accompanied by his wife Diana Fox Carney, the prime minister attended Mass at Aughagower’s parish church, visited the local cemetery where generations of his relatives are buried, and planted an Irish oak tree on the cemetery grounds to mark his visit. Lightening the ceremonial moment, Carney joked about his past experience working as a gardener, while his wife quoted iconic Irish folk singer Christy Moore’s *Don’t Forget Your Shovel* as he worked. After the service, he thanked local residents for their warm welcome and encouraged visitors to explore the village’s historic spots, including the former “Carney’s sweetshop” and local pub.
For the Carney clan in Aughagower, the meeting marked the end of a decades-long wait to connect with their famous relative. Rosaleen Heraty, O’Malley’s daughter, told RTÉ the family has been abuzz with excitement about the visit for weeks. “It’s all we can talk about, generations of the Carney clan, and we are so excited to finally meet him,” she said, noting the uncanny physical resemblance between Carney and his grandfather Robert — a similarity she first noticed when Carney served as Governor of the Bank of England. Her mother, she added, immediately recognized the family connection the moment she saw his face on television.
Local historical records paint a vivid picture of the hardship Carney’s ancestors faced in early 20th century Ireland. Both the Carney and Moran families worked as tenant farmers on the estate of Lord Sligo, surviving in modest rural dwellings typical of the era. Carney’s great-grandfather’s homestead in the townland of Ayle was a two-room thatched cottage that housed nine family members, with a third room added only later. The Moran family home in nearby Mace North was just a short distance away, both falling within the Aughagower parish — a site long tied to Irish legend, which holds that St. Patrick stopped there on his journey to Croagh Patrick.
Carney’s grandparents were part of the massive wave of emigration that followed the long-term upheaval of the Irish Great Famine, when more than one million people left Ireland for new lives abroad. After arriving in Canada in 1925, the pair married the following year and raised three sons, building a new life across the Atlantic that would eventually lead to their grandson becoming Canada’s prime minister.
Carney has long spoken openly about his connection to his Irish roots, describing his ancestry as “a big part of who I am” and saying he feels deep pride in his family heritage. Speaking to reporters in Aughagower, he called the visit a profound personal thrill, noting that he had visited the village twice before but traveled incognito on those trips, with no public attention. “It’s fantastic to be back,” he said.
To close out his day in Mayo, Carney attended a civic reception in Westport, where Mayo County Council presented him with a formal civic scroll to honor his visit. He also received a custom-commissioned commemorative history of the Carney family in Mayo, compiled by local Westport historian Harry Hughes alongside co-researchers James Kelly and Micheál Casey.
This visit marks the first bilateral trip to Ireland by a sitting Canadian prime minister since former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit in 2017, underscoring the enduring cultural and diplomatic ties between the two North American and European nations.