Helen O'Donnell

In 1994, O'Donnell was invited by John Bruton to sit as an alternate delegate for Fine Gael on the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation.^[4] The same year, she opened her first business; an art-and-craft gallery and restaurant.^[5]

In 2011, she founded Limerick City Tidy Towns and three years later she received the national Hero Award at Tidy Towns.^[6] In 2015, along with J. P. McManus and Paul O'Connell, she co-founded the annual Team Limerick Clean-Up, a one-day tidy happening every Good Friday and attracting over 20,000 volunteers from various towns in the county.^[7]

She sat as chair of Crescent College's board of management, Limerick City Business Association, Adapt Domestic Abuse Services and PAUL Partnership,^[8] and the Safefood advisory board. Founded in 1999, Safefood is one of six North-South implementation bodies established under the terms of the British–Irish Agreement.^[9][10] She represented Limerick Chamber at the National Retail Forum.^[11]

In 2013, she was awarded the Limerick Person of the Year award and was honoured with a civic reception in 2020. That same year, she was "grand marshal" of the Limerick St Patrick's Day Parade.^[12][13]

She ran the Hunt Cafe in the Hunt Museum for twenty-five years, until 2022.^[14]

She was a former honorary national secretary of Fine Gael.^[15]

In March 2023, O'Donnell announced that she would stand in the 2024 Limerick mayoral election, Limerick's first ever direct election for the position of mayor.^[16] She received the endorsement of businessman J. P. McManus, whose benevolent fund she served on the board of.^[17] O'Donnell finished second in the results, losing to John Moran on the 12th count.^[18]

In 1984, she married Tom O'Donnell, and they had one son. Her husband was a Fine Gael politician who served as a TD, MEP and cabinet minister.^[19] Her nephew through marriage, Kieran O'Donnell, is a Fine Gael TD for Limerick City.^[16]