What an achievement.

A woman from Carlow has just made history by becoming the first ever female Mayor of a small town in Germany. Deirdre Heckler is originally from Highfield in Carlow Town and first went to Germany as a student in 1990 and hasn't lived in Ireland since. With her maiden name as Dooley, she has been inaugurated as mayor of Breuberg, which is south of Frankfurt. Speaking on the Sue Nunn show on KCLR FM, Mayor Heckler said that she had always wanted to go to Germany as she lived with many Germans in her area in Carlow as Braun was near her home and many worked for them. “I think something must have triggered that stage in my head that I thought, yes, I’d like the German way of life; the structure, the punctuality, all that sort of thing," she said. “I think that must have done something with me in my childhood years." Deirdre was studying international marketing and languages at NIHE when she was speaking to a girl who mentioned she was going to be working with Odenwald Konserven in Germany but would rather head to the States. Asking if she could go in her place and she was accepted onto the work programme, before heading back in 1992 for good. She married a local man and the couple went on to have two daughters. Deirdre has been in local politics for the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) for 16 years and last September was chosen as their mayoral candidate and was elected directly.