Maria Walsh

Maria Walsh (born 11 June 1987) is an Irish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the Midlands–North-West constituency since July 2019. She is a member of Fine Gael, part of the European People's Party. Outside of politics, she is known for winning the 2014 Rose of Tralee pageant.

Maria Walsh was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 11 June 1987. Her mother, Noreen, grew up in Leitir Móir in Connemara in County Galway, while her father Vincent is from Roundfort in County Mayo. She has three siblings called Kevin, Eileen and Mikey. The family moved to Shrule, County Mayo in Ireland in 1994. After her college education, she emigrated to New York City in the United States, and then moved to Philadelphia in 2011.

The 2014 Rose of Tralee was the 55th edition of the annual Irish international festival held on 15–19 August 2014. The international finals of the competition were broadcast live by RTÉ One television on 18–19 August.

Maria Walsh, competing as the Philadelphia Rose, was crowned the winner of the competition on 19 August. She was aged 27 at the time, and had moved to Philadelphia in 2011.

She had been the favourite with the bookies, with Paddy Power offering odds of 2/5 for her to take victory.

During the 2019 European Parliament election campaign, a website "designed to look like a campaign site in favour of Walsh’s candidacy" was set up to oppose her campaign and " 'the homosexual lifestyle' ". The website broadcast ads on Google and Facebook. After Fine Gael requested that both Google and Facebook remove the ads, Facebook refused to do so, professing that the ads 'did not break community standards'.

Walsh was elected as an MEP from Midlands–North-West constituency at the 2019 European Parliament election. She is a member of Fine Gael and part of the European People's Party. She was the third of four successful candidates, elected with an eventual total of 107,198 votes (including 64,500 first preferences under Ireland's STV voting system, 10.8% of the first preferences for all candidates) on the 13th and final count (without reaching the quota of 118,986 votes). Walsh placed behind her Fine Gael colleague Mairead McGuinness and Independent Luke "Ming" Flanagan, and ahead of Sinn Féin's Matt Carthy. Unlike Walsh, the other three successful candidates were already sitting MEPs for the constituency.

In February 2020 Walsh broke with European People's Party (the European Parliamentary party of which Fine Gael is a member) ranks to support a veto on the construction of a number of energy production projects across Europe which included 55 fossil fuel projects. Walsh was one of only three EEP members to do so. One of the 55 fuel projects in question is a Liquefied natural gas station at Ballylongford in County Kerry, which critics suggest could be used to bring imported fracked gas into Ireland from the US and Canada. Outlining the reasons behind her vote, Walsh underlined her opposition to fracking. The veto did not pass, but fellow Irish MEPs such as the Green Party's Ciaran Cuffe praised her for her actions.

Walsh revealed that she is lesbian five days after winning the Rose of Tralee in 2014.

In April 2019, she was serving as a member of the Army Reserve, as a trooper with the Cavalry Corps (1st Armoured Cavalry Squadron) based in the Defence Forces Training Centre, Curragh Camp, which she said she had been doing for 'about two years'.