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By Dean Buckley

The campaigns manager in Ireland for a foreign political organisation carrying out a “name and shame” campaign against TDs is married to an Aontú general election candidate who sits on the party’s ard comhairle.

American Maria Mahoney has been the Irish campaigns manager for CitizenGo, a hard right Catholic activist group based in Madrid, since December last year.

Founded in 2013, CitizenGo supports the prohibition of homosexuality, abortion and divorce and has longstanding ties to the Christian hard right in Europe, the US and Russia. It claims to operate in more than 50 countries.

Mahoney operates the CitizenGo Ireland account on X – though CitizenGo doesn’t have to disclose its spending here because it hasn’t incorporated a subsidiary in Ireland.

Her husband Cormac Ó Corcoráin has been a member of Aontú’s ard comhairle since 2021 and contested the 2020 and 2024 general election as the party’s candidate in Galway West and Roscommon-Galway.

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said there’s no link between his party and CitizenGo. “People are married to other people, it doesn’t point to their jobs being connected. By that fallacy, a garda married to a teacher means the gardai are the armed wing of the school,” he said.

The Name and Shame Roadshow

The Ditch has previously reported on CitizenGo’s efforts to intervene in last year’s presidential election in favour of Maria Steen under Maria Mahoney’s predecessor Louise Roseingrave.

Before last year CitizenGo had a minimal presence in Ireland through Irish-American conservative activist Scott Schittl, a longtime political and business associate of Niamh Uí Bhriain of Gript. Its activities in other countries have been far more extensive.

Though portraying itself as a platform for grassroots activism it is a major funder of political campaigns, and has close ties with several European political parties, including Vox in Spain, Fidesz in Hungary and Alternative für Deutschland in Germany.

Mahoney recently organised a “Name and Shame Roadshow” with anti-abortion activists, holding small protests in the constituencies of TDs who voted for an unsuccessful private member’s bill that would have fully decriminalised abortion in Ireland.

Her husband Cormac Ó Corcoráin appears in a photo of the Dún Laoghaire protest posted on X by CitizenGo Ireland, alongside two people holding posters of Fine Gael TDs Barry Ward and Jennifer Carroll MacNeill branding them “abortion zealots”.

Another protest in Cavan, targeting Sinn Féin TDs Cathy Bennett and Matt Carthy, incorporated a statue of for Cavan GAA legend John Joe O’Reilly, with a tweet by CitizenGo Ireland saying, “Commandant John Joe O’Reilly helped us hold the banner listing all the TDs who shamefully voted to decriminalise abortion up to birth.”

CitizenGo’s signature method of applying political pressure are petitions to send automated emails to their targets.

Mahoney, whose name is given as Máire Ní Mhathúna on CitizenGo’s website, has written and promoted several petitions since starting her position, including one targeting a parish priest by name for allowing a trans rights event to be held in a parish hall.

Her first CitizenGo petition back in December urged Micheál Martin to support Aontú’s private member’s bill to reform the presidential nomination process.

Mahoney previously taught at Newman College Ireland, a short-lived Catholic college that operated in Derry from 2014 to 2018. Originally from the US, she came to Ireland to study at NUI Galway, where she was auditor of its anti-abortion society.

Ó Corcoráin, a native of Galway City, ran as Aontú’s candidate in Galway West in the 2020 general election, where he received 1,008 first preferences and was eliminated on the third count.

CitizenGo’s work has aligned with Aontú.

On 29 December last year CitizenGo had a stall outside the GPO collecting signatures for the petition with a banner that read “Pass Aontú’s Bill”.

In February Aontú’s Donegal representative Mary T Sweeney recorded a video encouraging people to sign the petition which was shared on the CitizenGo Ireland account on X.

CitizenGo also had a stall at Aontú’s ard fheis in March of this year, where Mahoney collected signatures for a petition to repeal the Gender Recognition Act.

International dark money

A 2021 investigation by the Mozilla Foundation found that CitizenGo paid professional disinformation peddlers in Kenya to spread false claims about abortion and surrogacy, including that surrogate births were more likely to experience medical complications.

It has also campaigned in favour of a bill that would introduce the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” in Kenya, where homosexuality is already illegal, and make LGBT Kenyans second-class citizens in their own country.

CitizenGo has always maintained that it is funded entirely by small donors and does not accept financial support from public institutions or private entities.

However according to the 2021 Tip of the Iceberg report on the role of international dark money in funding opposition to gender equality, LGBT rights and reproductive freedom in Europe, CitizenGo’s founder Ignacio Arsuga solicited seed capital to establish it from board members in exchange for their seats.

It recently started a new campaign in conjunction with the Life Institute called Three Days to Save a Life against the scrapping of the mandatory wait period for abortion. The organisation is also holding what it calls “coalition meetings” about repealing the Gender Recognition Act.

Aontú party leader Peadar Tóibín said there was no link between his party and the organisation.

"Aontú has no more of a relationship with CitizenGo than the The Ditch has.

“Aontú has all kinds of stands at the ard fheis including charities, mental health groups, Irish language activists and honeybee protection societies,” he said.

CitizenGo was contacted for comment.

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