Burke meets familiar faces on foreign fields

Minister for European Affairs Peter Burke wasn't the only Westmeath native in attendance at the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels earlier this week.

While deputising for Tánaiste Micheál Martin at the high level get together, he met Brigadier General Ger Buckley, a fellow Mullingar resident and member of Mullingar Shamrocks.

Brigadier General Buckley, who is the Defence Forces representative to the European Union and NATO Partnership for Peace, isn't the only familiar face that he has encountered on his travels recently.

While he was in Italy representing the Irish government at the St Patrick's Day events in the Vatican and Rome, he met Fr Ignatius, who often says mass in Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar.