Brian McEnery pictured in 2014 with his Harley-Davidson motorbike Brian Farrell Brian Farrell

WHEN CATHERINE CONNOLLY was asked during the presidential election campaign on Virgin Media who she would be bringing with her to live in the Áras, she gave a memorable answer: “My current husband.”

That current husband, of 33 years standing, is Co Clare native Brian McEnery.

Connolly’s husband has kept a low profile throughout the election campaign but did appear at her side with their sons Stephen and Brian in Dublin Castle last night as the Independent TD accepted her win.

According to our Political Editor Christina Finn, who was at the Castle, he looked proud to be accompanying his wife on such a grand occasion – but also a little overwhelmed at the attention. 

So who is the man set to become Ireland’s next ‘first husband’? 

A retired woodwork teacher now in his early 70s, McEnery grew up near Ennis.

He spent more than three decades teaching in Galway, with 25 years at Garbally College in Ballinasloe and nine more at St Joseph’s Patrician College on Nun’s Island in Galway city.

Catherine Connolly with her husband Brian McEnery in Dublin Castle last night Eamonn Farrell / RollingNews.ie Eamonn Farrell / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

Local sources we checked in with today confirmed the two share interests in everything from marathons to cycling to (of all things) rollerblading. Brian also has a love of motorbikes.

A newspaper article from 2014 also outlines health issues he struggled with after suddenly suffering a stroke in 2012. He noticed difficulty while working a drill at his local Men’s Shed and, eventually, doing other tasks.

“On the Wednesday, when Catherine took me to the doctor, I was still able to get in and out of the car, and my blood pressure was normal,” McEnery recalled to the Irish Independent at the time.

“But, by Thursday, I needed someone on each side to help me walk.”

Doctors discovered a clot on his brain and McEnery would spend more than three months receiving treatment in hospital.

After completing his recovery, he became an ambassador with Croi, a Galway-based organisation dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke.

“When they told us he’d had a stroke, it was terribly upsetting — the shock was something else,” Connolly later said.

“It was awful having to tell the children. They had always known Brian as a competent man. This was a most perplexing stroke for everyone involved.”

McEnery is far from the first ‘first husband’ of course.

Nicholas Robinson became the first when Mary Robinson was elected the first female president of Ireland in 1990, while Martin McAleese followed in his footsteps seven years later when Mary McAleese became Ireland’s eighth president.