Sean O'Connor

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Irish businessman and political activist Sean O'Connor is co-founder of Rally Ireland ( www.rallyireland.org) a round of the World rally Championship (WRC) and the largest sporting event on the island of Ireland.

O’Connor was the youngest person nominated to the Irish Senate in 1982.He is a grandson of former Irish Taoiseach Sean Lemass and lectures in Political Marketing and Public Affairs Ethics at Dublin Institute of Technology ( www.dit.ie).He has been a long term campaigner for reform of the Irish Senate and was a candidate for a University seat in the 2007 Senate elections on a reform platform.

In 2005 he launched Rally Ireland along with Ronan Morgan. It was the largest North-South sporting initiative ever undertaken. Research undertaken by the University of Ulster has estimated that hosting the 2007 World Rally Championships (WRC) round was worth €46 million to the economy. In addition, this prestigious sporting series has a global annual TV audience of over 800 million people. Rally Ireland had over 240,000 spectators and a TV audience in 180 markets. Rally Ireland will be the opening round of the 2009 WRC series.

He was educated at Terenure College, Dublin and played rugby for the SCT.He has a degree from DIT in marketing and a MA from DCU in political communications. Having lived and worked abroad for many years, including the UK and the Middle East, he now lives in Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, with his wife and five children.