The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
Almost immediately after marrying Jason Ryan in Ballyea church on Friday, Maureen Lillis sprinted to the nearby primary school to cast her vote in the 2014 Local and European Elections.
[doptg id=”12″]The couple live and work in Sydney, where Maureen is employed as a quantity surveyor, while Jason works as an engineer.
Maureen, whose family are sixth-generation Ballyea, is currently helping to build a tunnel under Sydney Opera House.
As for her political leanings, Maureen confessed to The Clare Champion that she is not a fanatic.
“I’ll be honest with you, I’m not but because everyone is getting all excited, I have to get my vote in. We both come from big families and they are getting very excited after hearing we were coming down to vote,” she laughed.
“It’s a bit of fun and it’s nice to vote. But, unfortunately, we’re not going to be here to see how things are run because we’ll be back in Australia. We’re going back in the second week in June. The plan is to stay out there another two or three years. There’s nothing to come back to, as regards working in construction at the moment,” Maureen observed.
The couple have yet to book a honeymoon but are thinking about heading to Italy or Croatia.
Maureen is the first of the two sisters and three brothers to tie the knot and one of very few to walk up the aisle and then vote in a constituency from which lack of employment has forced her to emigrate.
