How I Met My Partner: ‘I was a bit fidgety all night, I was worried I’d lose the ring’

Thomas and Michelle Gould, Sinn Féin TD and councillor for the northside of Cork city, first bonded over a mutual interest in GAA 24 years ago.

Thomas recalled they were both at a St Vincent’s camogie meeting on June 13, 2000. 

"Michelle was on the committee — we’d seen each other around before but that night I asked Michelle on a date.”

They chose Tung Sing on Patrick’s Street, and Michelle recalled: “I talked a lot, an awful lot, my food was nearly gone cold.”

When they got the sad news that the restaurant was to close earlier this year, they went back on the final day and sat at the same table they’d sat at for their first date.

From there, the couple spent more time together, enjoying mutual hobbies such as GAA and picking up some new interests from each other.

Thomas said: “I always loved ballad sessions, so I’d take Michelle to The Wolfe Tones then she’d bring me to musicals like Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera, and we both took to each of them.”

Holiday

Michelle said: “For our first Christmas together, he bought me a bottle of suncream, I thought he might have thought it was a nice body lotion or something so I didn’t say anything. Then he said to me do you really think that’s all I’ve got you, and he’d booked us a holiday to the Canary Islands.”

A few years later, Michelle went to America for the summer with friends, but said: “I missed him too much, I was on the phone crying so he flew over.”

They were staying in Niagara Falls when Thomas suggested a romantic dinner, and Michelle thought he was going to propose, recalling: “I got all dressed up, he dropped his fork and reached down to pick it up and I thought ‘this is it!’

“I had the dress picked out in my head already — he ordered champagne and I was looking in the glass, I was checking in the dessert, but there was nothing.”

Propose

Unbeknownst to her, Thomas had already bought a ring, but explained: “I knew I was going to propose in Paris.”

He planned a New Year’s Eve proposal only to find the Eiffel Tower closed early that day, so he shelved the plan and they went out, “but I was a bit fidgety all night, I was worried I’d lose the ring out of my pocket”. 

He didn’t, and the next day they returned to the Eiffel Tower and he popped the question, to a backdrop of snow, lights and excited tourists taking photographs of them.

The couple married in North Cathedral in April, 2005, and had the reception in Christy’s in Blarney after, sharing their first dance to Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing.

Michelle said: “I would do the whole day over again the exact same way, it was just perfect.”

They had two daughters, 15-year-old Orlaith and 18-year-old Aoife, who voted for the first time this June (for her mother) and plans to vote for her father this week.

POLITICS

Thomas got elected to Cork City Council the first time he ran in 2009, during Michelle’s final year of college as a mature student when she was also pregnant with Orlaith.

"Michelle used to do all my PR for me too — it was a very busy year for us but we got through it together.”

He served on the council for over 10 years before being elected to the Dáil in 2020. Michelle ran for council for the first time and was elected in June of this year.

Aside from politics, the couple love travelling Ireland together, be it following the hurling or a spur of the moment drive to Donegal to try and see the Northern Lights. In the evenings, they watch Prime Time or Up Front, “then we’ve had enough of politics for the day and we watch Gogglebox,” Michelle said.

Their daughters share lots of their interests, with Orlaith being a big fan of music and Aoife playing camogie, with Michelle sharing that they got to play together on the senior team “before I hung up my boots”.

The couple will be 20 years married next year, and said their attitude to politics and family life is: “We’re in it together, it’s a joint effort.”

“We’d be a very affectionate couple, holding hands in public or kissing — our daughters hate it,” Thomas said, with Michelle adding: “He’s still very romantic, always opening the car door for me.”