For the Lord Mayor of Dublin, no two days are the same. A member of the Labour Party, Lord Mayor Alison Gilliland took up the role in June 2021 having served on Dublin City Council for seven years.
So, what is a day in the life of the Lord Mayor of Dublin like?
“I generally like to start the day with a run or a bit of exercise, do an exercise class on zoom because if I don't get exercise in at that hour of the morning it just won’t happen,” says Lord Mayor Alison Gilliland.
“I run twice if not three times a week and I love running around different parts of the city, it just gives you a different view of the city.
“It’s lovely seeing the city wake up and loads of construction people coming in to work... and just seeing little things and appreciating them.
“I do wreck the manager's heads sometimes because I’ll take a photo of something that’s broken and say ‘listen can you look at this please’.
“But I do believe for citizens little things matter and people do appreciate a nice clean and maintained environment, particularly in the city centre.
“I like to be at my desk around eight, quarter-past eight, I tend to have breakfast at the desk.
“I spend my first hour more or less just doing emails, catching up with phone calls, correspondence, that sort of thing before the formal day.
“I would be given a schedule every evening, so I know exactly what’s going on, and then the documentation would be there for those meetings, so I prep that the evening before, and I suppose a lot of the day is around meetings, I might be the chair, or I might be attending in a Lord Mayor role,” she explains.
“Going to local community events that I might be invited to for presenting something or to speak, or doing photo launches for Dublin City Council events.
“Those sorts of events that are organised to promote the city and promote communities, that’s the type of events I would be attending.”
Shaping the agenda
Speaking about one of the toughest days she's had as Lord Mayor so far, Ms Gilliland, recalls a week when the council had more than 1,000 motions to get through in three days, and the fatigue setting in.
“I was on the way back from a visit to St Patricks Cathedral, they were showing me the new works there, and I asked the driver to pull in,” she explains.
“I literally had a cat nap for 15 minutes in the back of the car, and it worked, it was great.
“I think it was one o’clock in the morning when we managed to get out of that meeting.”
Although she has served on DCC for a number of years, Ms Gilliland says that taking up the role was “not really” something she had envisioned herself doing.
“When I came on to council this term I wanted to be housing chair if possible because that is an agenda I really want to drive within the council,” she says.
“When we formed the Dublin Agreement, which is almost a coalition between Fianna Fáil, Social Democrats, the Green Party and my own party... that group decided to give a different party an opportunity of being Lord Mayor and deputy Lord Mayor, and it was Labours turn this year.
“I did think about it, you know, there is a lot to consider because you have your own career, well in my case I had my own career that went alongside being a councillor.
“You consider family issues... so, having weighed up all of that I decided it was something I wanted to do.
“There were issues I did want to progress, and I thought, being Lord Mayor you can.”
Protecting the chain
Although being the Lord Mayor of Dublin can mean a busy schedule and endless meetings, there are a few perks to the job, like getting to live in the Mansion House.
“It's great, I've never actually lived in the city centre,” she says.
“There is an apartment just up above the Mansion House, so you literally have the city on your doorstep which is fantastic, and it gives a really new meaning to working from home.
“You live upstairs, you walk downstairs, and you have an office but all the rooms downstairs are public rooms so personally, as Lord Mayor, you don't have access to them.”
As well as living in the Mansion House, the Lord Mayor also gets the use of sponsored car.
“That is very much to take you on your formal business,” Ms Gilliland explains.
“It's to protect the chain because the chain I wear is invaluable, so the driver looks after that.
“It's put on me when I arrive and then when I get back into the car I give it back to him.”
Speaking to Ms Gilliland, her passion for the city is something that really comes across.
“In all honesty, every day I wake up, and I say god it’s such a privilege,” she says.
“It absolutely is a privilege to sit in this office and work with the team that’s here, work with my colleague councillors, with Dublin city management and just try to make the city a better place to live, work and recreate.
“And every day it’s like oh my goodness the term is so short I just want to do as much as I possibly can in the year.”
With Ms Gilliland's term as Lord Mayor set to end in June, handing back the keys to the Mansion House is not something she wants to think about yet.
“I am really focused on my to-do list over the next six months,” she says.
“I’ll probably start thinking about that two days before the end. I know it’s there, I know there’s an end date, and I’ll probably sleep the day after.”
