Labour's George Lawlor on how stand-up comedy and opera help him balance the stresses of political life

Irish Independent

25-05-2025

As well as stand-up comedy, he's also an outstanding operatic and ­musical performer — and was in good voice last week when he spoke to the Sunday Independent.
Brendan Howlin's successor in ­Wexford reeled off a host of funny stories, including one about the time a character he was playing had to ask who he needed to sleep with in order to make it on Broadway. In ­response, three nuns, in full regalia, got up in the front row and walked out.
'People laughed and clapped — they thought it was all part of the show,' he said.
A comedian and tenor-baritone, Lawlor (56), has regularly trod the boards of the Opera House, while also serving as mayor of Wexford five times and being a member of Wexford County Council for 15 years.
Last year, he was in The Phantom of the Opera before his election as a TD, and has played Daryl Van Horne — 'Jack Nicholson's character' — in The Witches of Eastwick, among scores of other productions.
He began performing in public in 1980 in the boys' choir in Wexford.
'We now have the National Opera House [in Wexford] and we're very proud of it,' he said.
'I find participation is great for mental health, and for the stress and concerns of day-to-day politics. As a local councillor and parliamentary ­assistant to Brendan Howlin, I was run off my feet. Urban councillors have a huge workload, but don't have any staff to support them.'
Now the chair of the Dáil committee on the Traveller community, and sometimes in the House until midnight, he says he misses the 'roar of the greasepaint and smell of the crowd' (a nod to the musical of the same name).
He says it is still a performance in the chamber — 'where my constituency colleague ­Verona Murphy wields the baton'.
Lawlor jokes it will be the voters who decide when he goes back to the theatre, saying: 'I will go back to it after this stage. Any form of music or am-dram [amateur drama] is a great winter pastime. Phantom did €200,000 worth of business and was booked out two months in ­advance.'
The Labour TD is also PR and marketing chair for the Fleadh, which marks its second year in Wexford in August, having drawn 650,000 visitors to the town last year.
He can sing from Les Mis or Jekyll & Hyde at the drop of a hat and believes his involvement with musicals and opera has helped to propel him on to the national stage.
'I've long been part of the Wexford Light Opera Society, one of the most successful on the island, and sadly was not able to take part in this year's production of Young Frankenstein.'
He loves singers Kiri Te Kanawa and Marilyn Horne and adores the Three Tenors — but the best voice of all, he believes, belonged to ­Swedish tenor Jussi Bjorling, the choice of many cognoscenti. 'As to sopranos, Maria Callas will never be surpassed.'
He's thinking he might squeeze something in with the Oireachtas Drama Society, although he has yet to join. It's currently rehearsing a stage version of Ulysses to mark Bloomsday next month.