Leanne Brosnan

Leanne Brosnan, who first got involved in EYP as a transition year student seven years ago, announced the end of her term as president this week following her graduation from Trinity College Dublin with a first class honours degree in Law and Political Science.

Ms Brosnan, who will sit her FE-1 exams with the Law Society of Ireland this August and has secured a training contract with Arthur Cox, told Irish Legal News: “Wherever I end up, I definitely have EYP to thank for the skills to get me there.”

EYP Ireland is one of around 40 national committees of the European Youth Parliament International, which aims to promote an interest in European issues among young people, particularly through regional and national conferences every year.

“Through my first event with EYP, I realised my interest in law,” Ms Brosnan said. “I became enthralled in the political debates happening at the event and the diverse range of world problems being discussed.

“I had never put my mind to a lot of those topics in school. I decided that politics gave me interest in the world around me, but studying law would – hopefully – give me the power to make changes to that world.

“I wanted to understand how legislative decisions we were discussing at EYP came to be, what the impact of that is, and how subsequent injustices are resolved.”

At the age of 22, after years of involvement in EYP events starting with the Dublin Regional Session in 2013, Ms Brosnan became company director and president of EYP Ireland – “probably one of few companies being entirely run by people under the age of 23”.

“When I became president, my decisions were suddenly important and this was a huge responsibility for a 22-year-old,” she said.

“I ironically started studying my company law module in university at the same time as being director of a company myself. Everything I was studying applied to me and this made it really interesting.”

Ms Brosnan credits her leadership role in EYP with her decision to seek qualification as solicitor and a training contract with Arthur Cox, where she previously worked as an intern.

“I was not expecting to go down this path initially as, like many law students, I had no experience of being in a firm and had no idea what the work was,” she said.

“However, I loved my internship at Arthur Cox last year. It is a firm that has a huge global dimension to it and the projects I was working on gave me that same buzz as working on something for EYP.

“I am not sure where my qualification will take me in the distant future but I know I would love to be an expert in my field working on projects that have an intercultural dimension, perhaps here, perhaps somewhere in Europe.”

EYP runs conferences in all four provinces of Ireland and, due to the impact of COVID-19, is also running an online event this summer which all secondary school students are welcome to attend.

The organisation is gearing up to host a separate university conference in the coming year, and university students are also welcome to apply to volunteer or participate in EYP events.

Ms Brosnan said: “I could not recommend getting involved more. EYP introduced me to people I would never otherwise meet, in places I never would have gone, talking about complex topics I never would have considered. It gives young people a voice and the ability to grow and learn outside of a formal education environment.

“This has added perspective and understanding to topics that I later encountered in my legal studies and developed my critical thinking skills, something which every law student knows is paramount to success. I think every Irish young person should consider giving it go, particularly those with a legal career in mind!”