Galway man Peter Mannion had one hell of a summer job, one that culminated in him meeting president-elect Barack Obama on the steps of Capitol Hill.
Peter (20 ), originally from Tuam and a final year corporate law student at NUIG, was working as an intern for president-elect Obama as part of the Washington-Ireland programme.
After arriving in Washington in June last year Peter, along with some 20 other interns, carried out constituent work in then Senator Obama’s office in the capital.
“He voted five or six times while I was there,” said Peter, “But I only got the chance to meet him once. I introduced myself, said I was the Irish intern. And he told me about his distant cousins here and he told me he had to go visit them and he thanked me for all the work I did for him.”
Peter added that to see his former boss elected was incredible.
“To see queues and queues of people going in to vote, and to see so many people crying and so emotional was an amazing moment in history,” he said.
