Alison Donnelly’s working life over the past decade has been, to say the least, a touch on the varied side. Her earliest mission, from her teenage days when she began writing for newspapers, was to persuade fellow journalists to give women’s rugby some coverage; her current task is to help her boss persuade the people of Britain to stay in the European Union. That’s variety for you.
And what kind of boss is George Osborne?
“He’s a very interesting person to work for,” she says of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, “and he’s a lot more relaxed and funny than his public persona. He’s a nice guy.”
So, how did the 33-year-old from Ballintotis in east Cork get from rugby dominating just about every aspect of her life to being Head of Strategic Communications in the British Treasury’s press office? It’s been quite a trip.
The affair with rugby began when she started playing the game at 16 in Midleton, at a time “when you could count the number of women’s teams in Cork on one hand”. She loved it, and since then she has been involved at every level of the sport – playing, coaching and promotion.
While she was in UCC she became PRO for the Irish Women’s Rugby Football Union, before it came under the umbrella of the IRFU. It wasn’t the easiest of jobs. “Nobody was interested at the time. I can remember doing a Six Nations launch in Limerick where one journalist turned up and half the team was there. So it was a case of begging people to cover the games. Then the IRFU took over and slowly things got better.”
Special award
She moved to London in 2009 and it was then that she set up ScrumQueens.com which, to this day, remains the world’s leading women’s rugby website. Last year it was high on the list of reasons she received a special award from the Rugby Union Writers’ Club in London for her services to the women’s game.
“There was hardly any coverage at all at that stage, so the site became really popular and took on a life of its own. Back then it would take the union two days to put something on their website after a game, it was hard getting any kind of information at all. But it’s easily accessible now, so the site has become more about interviews and features rather than news.
“There are real spikes of coverage now, particularly for Ireland around the World Cup and the Six Nations, but we still have a long way to go. That doesn’t surprise me, though, it’s the same for most women’s sport, the national team getting a profile when they do well, and then it drops off. It’s better than it was, but the unions could do so much more to promote them.”
While working on ScrumQueens, Donnelly had day jobs to attend to as well. She continued in journalism when she moved to London, worked with Sky Sports News for a spell, then the BBC as a press officer, before becoming Head of Communications with Wasps RFC.
Amazing experience
“At that time they were about to go bankrupt, the club was sold twice, there were times when we weren’t being paid, so it was all very challenging – but it was an amazing experience. After three years, though, I decided rugby had taken over my life, I needed something new.”
It was then that her journey took her back in the direction she had first taken when she did a BSc in Government and Public Policy in UCC. In 2014 she became senior press officer for the British Cabinet Office, and a year later she moved to the Treasury.
“I work as a civil servant alongside George Osborne’s team. It’s an interesting, crazy political environment, but it’s a job I love. I work on all of the issues that the Treasury is focussed on – the economy, tax, pensions, financial services, and so on.
“We go abroad a lot with the Chancellor too, we were in China for 10 days before Christmas – four cities, four speeches, 20 to 30 interviews with both Chinese and British press, so a lot of it is just facilitating that. Working with press queries, all that, trying to get journalists off your back,” she laughs.
A hectic time with the referendum coming up? "It is – but it's really good, normally civil servants can't get involved in campaigning, but we can on this issue. So we're touring the country, we're heavily involved with the media. It's really interesting because the majority of the print press are campaigning to leave, the ones campaigning to stay in, say the Guardian and the Daily Mirror, wouldn't traditionally be Tory-supporting, so suddenly we are working with newspapers that wouldn't normally be willing to work with this government. It's an interesting clash of ideology, a fascinating time."
The busiest of times, too. Donnelly, who recently celebrated the second anniversary of her wedding to Sarah Edwards, one of the first same-sex ceremonies in Britain after the passing of legislation in March 2014, is currently completing a book on the history of women’s rugby with fellow enthusiast John Birch. And updating ScrumQueens on her laptop when she has a break from trying to avert Brexit.
“I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like sitting around doing nothing,” she laughs.
The mother of all understatements.
