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Irish Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Who is the American who left €535,000 to Sinn Féin's US fundraising group in her trust?
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. READ MORE 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. [ Sinn Féin's US fundraising arm raises further €233,000 in donations Opens in new window ] '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. [ People Before Profit activists quit party over possibility of Sinn Féin-led government Opens in new window ] '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.'
Irish Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Sinn Féin's US fundraising arm raises further €233,000 in donations
Sinn Féin's US fundraising arm, Friends of Sinn Féin , has raised a further €233,000 in donations, new filings to the US department of justice show. The Irish party's US political arm is required to disclose its activities and fundraising under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of Sinn Féin and lodges filings every six months. The latest filing, for the six-month reporting period to the end of April, shows that Friends of Sinn Féin raised $264,184 (€233,952). The Lauren Harvey Living Trust was the biggest donor at $216,521 (€191,861). Ms Harvey lived in Arizona and died in a crash in November 2020. A park planner by profession, she was a regular visitor to Ireland and named her home Connemara Ranch. The party has never acknowledged any connection to the woman. READ MORE A grant of $20,000 (€17,722) was provided by the Knights of the Red Branch, a California-based Irish-American organisation, to fund the purchase of adverts in US newspapers and websites in the run-up to St Patrick's Day. The filings also show that the fundraising arm sent $26,938 (€23,870) to Sinn Féin in Belfast. The largest expense incurred by the group was $74,858 (€66,332) for newspaper advertisements. A further $36,567 (€32,407) was spent on travel expenses. Mark Guilfoyle, president of Friends of Sinn Féin and a US attorney based in Kentucky, said the sum sent to Belfast was 'a typical transfer we make from time to time to cover sanctioned expenses that the party incurs in the North'. 'It's all in compliance with the electoral laws,' he said. 'It's a relatively common transfer that we're able to make in the North.' The overall amount raised is less than the €366,000 generated in fundraising in the six months to October 2024. Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald and vice-president Michelle O'Neill did not travel to Washington, DC in March for St Patrick's Day. 'This particular period from November to April is typically not our big fundraising period, that comes from May 1st to October 31st,' Mr Guilfoyle said. [ Long Read: Inside Sinn Féin – Who really makes the big decisions in Ireland's most popular party? Opens in new window ] 'If you look at last year's six-month report for the same six months, you'll notice our website donations are actually up significantly. We've seen no drop-off in the enthusiasm of our activists here in the States. We do not typically schedule fundraisers around the trip to Washington. We like to keep the focus there on politics.' Friends of Sinn Féin is active in briefing US politicians on political developments, the push for Irish unification and the Northern Ireland peace process. It regularly lists briefings with US politicians in the filings with the US department of justice in Washington, DC. Eurotech Construction, a New York-based company founded by Co Tyrone native Fay Devlin, a long-time and generous financial supporter of Sinn Féin, provides the political group office space, rent-free, in the US.
