Board Members
Denise Charlton
Co-Chair, Marriage Equality; CEO Immigrant Council of Ireland.
Previously Director of Women's Aid and was appointed to the Task Force on Violence Against Women, the Women's Health Council, the Advisory Research Committee of the Crime Council and the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism.
Ross Golden-Bannon
Board Member, Marriage Equality; Editor, FOOD&WINE Magazine; Restaurant Critic, The Sunday Business Post; Board member of One Family. Political lobbyist and activist in Britain and Ireland. Expert on European politics.
Client director of Grayling Global specialising in development issues and the developing world.
Paula Fagan
Paula qualified as an accountant in 1998 and has worked as the Finance Manager with Women's Aid for the past 8 years. Through her work in Women's Aid, Paula has participated on a number of voluntary organisation boards including Sonas Housing Association which provides transitional housing to women homeless due to Domestic Violence and the newly established Women at Work Skillnet which provides training to women in low skilled employment.
Paula has worked on LGBT issues for many years, having volunteered with the Dublin Lesbian Line to help maintain and develop their service before becoming involved with Marriage Equality. Paula also holds a Master's degree in Women's Studies from WERRC, UCD, with a specific focus on the issues affecting migrant women experiencing domestic violence.
Grainne Healy
Co-Chair, Marriage Equality. Chairwoman of the European Women's Lobby's Observatory on Violence against women, a former Vice President of the EWL; a former Chairwoman of the National Women's Council of Ireland; Previous Chairwoman of the National Domestic Violence Intervention Agency, a Ministerial appointee to the Board of the Equality Authority, The Women's Health Council.
Grainne is a feminist activist and very involved in the campaigns for women's rights in Ireland including reproductive health issues of abortion and contraception, violence against women, trafficking and anti-poverty issues.
Orla Howard
Board Member Marriage Equality; Board member National Lesbian and Gay Federation; Managing Director of Mediaforce Ireland (An Advertising Sales Agency primarily working with national and regional newspapers).
Professionally, Orla has been involved in the Marketing and Advertising Industry for many years and as well as having worked in the Newspaper industry, she has worked in TV and Radio. Orla has been involved with the NLGF for 10 years and her key area of interest is advancing equality for Gay Men and Lesbians.
Patrick Lynch
Board Member, Marriage Equality; Assistant National Director, HSE; Secretary of the National Lesbian and Gay Foundation (NLGF).
Professional interest in the management of change and has been involved in a number of health related change programmes in the organisations he has worked with over the past 30 years.
Ailbhe Smyth
Board member, Marriage Equality; Chair, NLGF (National Lesbian and Gay Federation); Board member, GAZE, the Lesbian & Gay Film Festival; Co-Convenor, Feminist Open Forum; independent consultant, educator and researcher.
The founding Director of the Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre (WERRC) at UCD and and a senior academic for many years, Ailbhe has been active in social movement politics since the 1970s and continues to work with NGOs and Community organisations.