Who is the American who left €535,000 to Sinn Féin's US fundraising group in her trust?

Irish Times

a day ago

Buried in two half-year filings that
Friends of Sinn Féin
, the political party's
US
fundraising arm, submitted were large donations from a previously unknown woman.
The group is obliged to lodge the regular reports disclosing its activities and fundraising every six months to the US Department of Justice under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of
Sinn Féin
, and has been doing so for two decades.
Friends of Sinn Féin raises annual donations from long-time supporters, mainly from wealthy Irish-American building contractors and their contacts working in the New York and New Jersey area.
But on the lists of smaller donors on two occasions in the regular Friends of Sinn Féin filings over the past three years was the name Lauren Harvey. The sums involved stood out from the usual $10 and $25 donations mostly made online.
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In 2022, the group benefited from a windfall of $394,010 (€345,000) by way of a 'distribution' from an entity called the Lauren Harvey Living Trust.
Then last month, the latest Friends of Sinn Féin filing for the six months to the end of April shows, a second sum – $216,521 (€191,861) – landed from the same trust linked to the late Lauren Harvey, bringing its donations to $610,531 (€535,000).
'It is still the largest donation we have received. Bequests happen, but that donation was incredibly generous,' said Mark Guilfoyle, president of Friends of Sinn Féin.
'We were very surprised – and are eternally grateful – that Harvey would think of us in her living trust ... she was surely a generous and caring individual.'
The late billionaire US philanthropist
Chuck Feeney
donated $780,000 to the group to assist in its establishment in the mid-1990s, though those donations came from Feeney personally ($380,000) and two entities he was connected with totalling $400,000.
She was a quiet adventurer. She cared deeply about people, and she just gave so much of herself in every situation she was in. She had a lot of loss in her life, and out of that loss she brought forth a lot of beauty and a lot of enjoyment for herself and for anyone around her
—
Kathleen Erickson
Harvey has been described as a 'quiet adventurer' who lived in a rural area outside of the desert city of Tucson, Arizona.
She may have lived 8,000km from Ireland, but she had a deep love for Irish culture.
Harvey was hit by a car on November 12th, 2020, while cycling near her home. She died instantly. But her generosity lives on through the Lauren Harvey Living Trust. Friends of Sinn Féin has been one of her biggest beneficiaries.
Guilfoyle, the group's president, said the money is used 'to 'build and maintain support' for the 1998 Good Friday agreement – the landmark agreement underpinning the Northern Ireland peace process – and to 'promote Irish unity through peaceful and democratic means'.
'We do that by providing platforms for Sinn Féin representatives on these issues in the US,' he said.
Harvey, who was 60 when she died, created the trust with her now-deceased long-time partner Kathleen Digan, who was Irish and 'completely immersed in Irish stuff', said Kathleen Erickson, Harvey's partner of 16 years at the time of her death.
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'They spent a lot of time in Ireland. They travelled to Ireland quite a few times. Kathy was literally born on St Paddy's Day, so she really pursued her Irish heritage,' said Erickson, who is trustee of the fund.
'She was becoming fluent in the language and music and all of that, but they also spent quite a bit of time in Ireland, mostly in Connemara.'
The pair stayed at a 'kind of farm' in the Connemara area for weeks at a time every year, Erickson said.
'Ireland was just very important to both of them, so it was very clear that they wanted to leave money to Sinn Féin,' she said.
Born in Ohio, Harvey moved to Tucson and earned a degree in landscape architecture from the University of Arizona. She worked for the Pima County Department of Parks and Recreation.
She later moved to San Jose in California with Digan, but the pair found their way back to Tucson in 2000 and developed their dream home on a patch of desert.
'In fact, the house that Lauren and Kathy designed and built, which is where I live now and where I lived with Lauren for 15 years before she died, is called Conamara Ranch. That's how important the Connemara region was for Kathy and Lauren,' said Erickson.
Harvey took a leave of absence from her work with the parks department when Digan was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2002.
Digan died two years later, with Harvey by her side. Eventually Harvey found love again with Erickson, and the pair had a commitment ceremony in 2006.
Harvey was an avid hiker and cyclist – 'she died doing what she loved', Erickson said. After retiring early in 2011, she learned how to swim and began practising t'ai chi. After Erickson and Harvey went on a 550-mile walking pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, Harvey set about learning Spanish.
'Whenever she did anything, she just threw herself into it. She really gave herself to it. But she never did just one thing at a time,' she said.
Harvey also became a sought-after abstract artist. When she died, two shows of her works were planned; since it was during the Covid pandemic, the shows ended up going up online.
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'The most significant thing of the last years of her life was that she took a drawing class and one thing led to another, and she just became a wonderful abstract artist, and all of this just flowed out of her in those relatively few years. She had never done anything like that before,' said Erickson.
Harvey devoted time and money to many humanitarian causes, including a Tucson-area food bank and the nonprofit Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, which helps immigrants in Arizona.
Gabriela Corrales, the group's director of philanthropy, said, 'She came to our virtual events, always wanting to understand what our clients were facing while detained in Arizona. She was thoughtful and asked great questions. Lauren supported the Florence Project with heart.
'I meet many donors, [but] the ones that stand out to me are those that care beyond the gift. Lauren did that.'
Harvey lived her life fully, Erickson said, and touched many lives, as evidenced by the number of messages posted on her memorial page.
'She was a quiet adventurer. She cared deeply about people, and she just gave so much of herself in every situation she was in,' she said.
'She had a lot of loss in her life, and out of that loss she brought forth a lot of beauty and a lot of enjoyment for herself and for anyone around her.
'But she would be shocked to think that very many people remembered her.'