No wonder the Israelis were confused about Dublin’s lord mayor. Even close political colleagues of Micheál Mac Donncha are not aware that he was once a child film star, who played a young version of Marty Feldman in a 1977 movie shot in Ireland.
The Sinn Fein councillor managed to attend a conference in Israel last week after officials mistook his title in Irish — ard mheara — as his first name. Similarly, his role in The Last Remake of Beau Geste has gone unnoticed because the then 12-year-old was listed in the credits as Michael McConkey, his birth name.
Yesterday, Mac Donncha explained that he later switched to using an Irish-language variant of his family name.
“My father [Billy McConkey] was from Howth, and