Sinn Féin’s US fundraising and lobbying arm recorded $57,700 (€50,000) in income in the six months to October, including a further $18,804 donated from a trust set up by an Arizona woman who died in 2020.
The sum brings the total amountgifted to Friends of Sinn Féin from the estate of the late Lauren Harvey since 2022 to almost $630,000 or €541,000, according to new records filed with the US department of justice.
The remainder of the $57,700 in income came from small online donations and bank interest.
The lump sum is the third payment made to the group by Ms Harvey’s estate.
READ MORE
Friends of Sinn Féin previously received $394,010 from the Lauren Harvey Living Trust in 2022 and $216,521 earlier this year.
Ms Harvey died when she was hit by a car while cycling near her home on November 12th, 2020.
Described as a “quiet adventurer” who lived in a rural area outside of the desert city of Tucson, Arizona, she created the trust with her now-deceased long-time Irish partner, Kathleen Digan. A park planner by profession, she was a regular visitor to Ireland and named her home after Connemara.
Friends of Sinn Féin has been one of her biggest beneficiaries.
In June the group’s president, Mark Guilfoyle, said Ms Harvey’s donation had been its largest ever.
“It is still the largest donation we have received. Bequests happen, but that donation was incredibly generous,” said Mr Guilfoyle, a US attorney based in Kentucky.
“We were very surprised – and are eternally grateful – that Harvey would think of us in her living trust . . . she was surely a generous and caring individual.”
The political organisation, which raises most of its money every year from large construction companies in New York and surrounding US states, spent almost $267,000 in the latest six-month reporting period.
This included $133,000 on expenses related to fundraising activities and $62,000 on airline fares, hotels and other travel for the party’s representatives including Sinn Féin politicians who visited the US this year.
Expenses amounting to more than $55,400 were also recorded in the filings under the heading of wages/ payroll taxes. A further $5,440 was spent on various digital and internet provider subscriptions.
Friends of Sinn Féin is obliged to lodge the regular reports disclosing its activities and fundraising every six months to the US department of justice under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The organisation is active in briefing US politicians on political developments, the push for Irish unification and the Northern Ireland peace process. It regularly lists briefings with US politicians in the official filings.
Eurotech Construction, a New York-based company founded by Co Tyrone native Fay Devlin, a long-time and generous financial supporter of Sinn Féin, provides the political group office space, rent-free, in the US.
Ms Harvey’s donation is not the first to be received by Sinn Féin from an individual’s estate.
The party has received almost £4 million (€4.75 million) in payments from the estate of a reclusive English millionaire William Hampton since 2019.
Last year Sinn Féin received a political donation of almost €44,000 from Kilkenny man Michael Dollard who bequeathed a portion of his estate to the party.
