It has been a near meteoric rise for 24-year-old Labour’s Eoghan Kenny. Just five years after writing a letter as a Leaving Cert student to then the Minister for Education, Joe McHugh over the delay in building new classrooms at his school, he is heading to Dáil Éireann.

A native of Mallow where he is chair of the local parish council, Kenny joined Labour in 2017 and worked as a parliamentary assistant to Cork East Labour TD, Sean Sherlock under whose guidance he won a seat on Cork County Council in June. That was his first electoral foray.

A former minor hurler and footballer with Mallow GAA. Kenny, who works as a Business Studies and Religion teacher at Mayfield Community School, recently revealed that he lives with epilepsy but said it doesn’t affect his ability to do his job as a public representative.

He will be the youngest TD in the new Dáil.