Ireland elects a gay of Indian origin as its youngest Prime Minister
New Delhi – In a historic moment, people of Ireland have chosen a gay to become their country’s Prime Minister.
The PM elect Leo Varadkar (38) has links with Varad village in Konkan region of Maharashtra. He has a huge family residing in Mumbai.
Born on 18 January 1979 in the Rotunda Hospital in Parnell Square, Dublin, Varadkar is the youngest child and only son of Ashok and Miriam Varadkar. His Mumbai-born Indian father had moved to England as a doctor in the 1960s. His Dungarvan-born mother met her future husband while working as a nurse in Slough. Later they lived in Leicester, where the eldest of their three children, Sophie, was born. The family then moved to India, but settled in Dublin in 1973 before their second child, Sonia, was born.
Varadkar was educated at the St Francis Xavier National School, Blanchardstown. His secondary-level education took place in Palmerstown at The King’s Hospital, which is a fee-paying school operated under the ethos of the Church of Ireland. During his secondary schooling he joined Fine Gael. He was admitted to Trinity College, Dublin (TCD), where he briefly studied law. He later switched to medicine. At TCD he was active in Young Fine Gael and served as vice-president of the Youth of the European People’s Party, the youth wing of the Christian Democrat group.[2] He was also selected for the prestigious Washington Ireland Program, which prepares ambitious young people for future leadership roles. He graduated from the school of medicine in 2003 and spent several years working as a junior doctor in St. James’s Hospital and Connolly Hospital before qualifying as a general practitioner in 2010.
