Fact File
Name: Celia Larkin
Born: 1959
Lives: Dublin
Famous for: being the long-term partner of the Taoiseach. She is also his personal assistant and administrator in the constituency office Why in the news: she is to accompany Bertie Ahern when he pays his first visit to President Bill Clinton as Taoiseach this weekend.
Celia Larkin, one suspects, is more than a little excited at the prospect of the next few days. Tomorrow she jets off to New York with her partner Bertie Ahern to attend a banquet being held in the Taoiseach's honour. On Monday morning they will be received by Bill and Hillary Clinton in the White House. That evening they will attend another function, hosted by Senator Edward Kennedy in Boston.
For such an intensely social creature, catching up with her new acquaintance Hillary Clinton ought to be particularly satisfying. They met last October when the First Lady was in Dublin. It was the first occasion that Celia Larkin's name appeared with the Taoiseach's on an invitation to a State reception. The pair got on well enough but, say those who know her, Celia Larkin is no Clinton clone.
"She is not looking for that type of profile," said one. "At the moment she has what she wants. What she wants is himself as an individual, not just as Taoiseach. Her whole life is built around Bertie".
To a certain extent this was the case even before the couple began a relationship. She has known him almost all his political life: they first met in the late 1970s in Ogra Fianna Fail, the party's youth organisation. Since then she has formed an integral part of that unique social circle known as Bertie's gang.
Celia grew up in east Finglas in a well-known Fianna Fail family. Her mother was deeply involved in community affairs, while her father, dubbed the eternal student by some, has recently completed a course in aeronautics at UCD.
Their daughter was active in politics from an early age. Later she ran in the local elections but lost out to Pat Carey. "She didn't lose by very much," says Mr Carey, now a Fianna Fail TD. "She was systematic in her approach to the campaign. She was a good tenacious candidate".
Bertie Ahern married Miriam Kelly (with whom he had two daughters, who are not thought to be overly fond of their father's current arrangement) while remaining good friends with Celia. She became his secretary in the Drumcondra constituency office. A year spent as Dublin's lord mayor is acknowledged to have taken its toll on his marriage, which broke down, and somewhat inevitably Celia Larkin became the Second Relationship. It is a development some in Fianna Fail will never forgive and others cannot understand.
"It's baffling," said one disgruntled supporter. "Bertie is so committed to everything else. I don't know how it happened".
On the other hand Celia is seen as a good advertisement for the Taoiseach. "She is pretty, stylish and always impeccably groomed," said an acquaintance of both. (For the New York trip she has employed the services of the Derry-born designer Jen Kelly.) "We want to see him happy, contented and on top of his game and she contributes to that."
On the day he became leader Bertie Ahern referred to her as his partner and received a cheer from the assembled grass roots. Contrastingly, he was approached by party elders and advised not to take her with him around the country. There were some rumblings of discontent when she was appointed to the well-paid State job of personal assistant to the Taoiseach and administrator of his constituency office, but no one else, most agree, could do a more thorough job.
"She has a sort of social ombudsman role and she does it well because she is fearless and knows all the support systems," said an acquaintance. She is hard-working and a meticulous list-keeper. She is also marked out by the "hushed attentive respect" she affords elderly constituents.
She does not talk to journalists. Friends contacted to give their opinions display admirable loyalty, immediately insisting on clearing it with her before they can talk. They come back soon afterwards apologising. "I would only say good things about her but she doesn't want me to," is the standard response.
This reluctance to reveal herself even on the most positive of levels is understandable. She is said to have a visible tentativeness about her, constantly braced for a challenge or insult that rarely materialises and is often imagined. She has been particularly sensitive this year, say some, as she battled to maintain her trim figure and to give up cigarettes.
She has a deep sense of social justice. Her other big instinct is to protect, above all else, the Taoiseach's reputation and image. She has influence to a certain degree, but mainly in constituency matters.
Her relationship with the Taoiseach will never, say observers, be used as a stepping stone to greater political recognition. She has strong opinions but, unlike Hillary Clinton's, they are opinions the general public is unlikely to ever hear.
One well-placed source put it perfectly: "She has submerged her political ambitions in service to Bertie and makes no bones about it. There are no personal comments on anything. Not only that but she has taken some of the most public humiliation any woman in Ireland has been offered in recent years."
A recent article in the Examiner newspaper described her as Bertie Ahern's mistress a total of eight times. It also alluded to newspaper reports that on Mr Ahern's election as Taoiseach she had to be rescued from the public gallery by Padraig Flynn and his wife. Add Celia's stoic silence on these and other issues and the role she has chosen becomes clear.
"All this would suggest that this young woman has decided that she has to take whatever is dished out," said the source.
Well, not entirely. On scanning the menu for a dinner tomorrow night hosted by the Irish Ambassador in New York's Plaza Hotel she has reportedly taken exception in regard to one dish. Word sent from Dublin to the organisers requested that potatoes be left off her plate, according to one source. On some issues, evidently, Celia is unwilling to compromise.