The Speaker of Irish Parliament (Ceann Comhairle), Verona Murphy, graced as the Guest of Honour, the ‘Festival of Saree: Féile na Saree’, organised by the Indian Embassy in Dublin on October 1, 2025. The event was specially designed to highlight the spirit of Swadeshi and Make in India, in the context of the 156th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
Verona Murphy was elected as the Speaker of the Parliament of Ireland in December, 2024, being the first-ever woman to occupy this exalted position in the 103 years of Irish Parliamentary history.
It was the first time the Speaker of Ireland attended a cultural event in the Indian Embassy. This represented truly special, symbolic on the part of Murphy, as it is very rare for the Irish dignitaries of her stature to join events hosted by foreign diplomatic missions in Dublin. The Indian community was particularly overwhelmed by the gesture of Speaker Murphy to come draped in a saree.
The program was held in a hybrid mode, with physical and virtual multi-media presentations and in-person lecture-cum-demonstrations to highlight the incredible richness and diversity of Indian sarees in terms of the fabric, the weaving and draping techniques, decorative motifs, and long-standing regional, rural and tribal traditions and tales associated with every variety of saree.
Despite the constraints of local availability, the show comprised display of different varieties of sarees representing 20 States of India. The event was attended by specially invited Irish women influencers, diplomatic community representatives and prominent women from the Indian community.
It was an entirely women-led Indian cultural projection entirely conceptualized, coordinated, and executed by Reeti Mishra, spouse of the Indian Ambassador, and other women officers of the Embassy, and creative ladies among the Indian Diaspora in Ireland. Speaker Murphy also kindly handed over certificates of appreciation to the ladies behind the presentation.
