John Hennessey-Niland, Chargé d'affaires

Mr. John Hennessey-Niland became Chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Dublin after the resignation of Ambassador Daniel M. Rooney on December 14, 2012.

Mr. Hennessey-Niland arrived in Ireland on April 9, 2010 to take up his duties as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Dublin.  He came directly from an assignment at the National Security Council at the White House, where he was Director for the G-8 and G-20 Summits.

Mr. Hennessey-Niland was born in Chicago, Illinois and moved at the age of seven with his family to Europe, where he lived for over a decade in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.  He graduated with honors from the International School of Amsterdam in 1982.  He received a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations, Magna Cum Laude, from Tufts University in 1985 and a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School in 1987.  He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the International Cycle of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) in 2006.

Mr. Hennessey-Niland entered public service in 1987 as a Presidential Management Intern and joined the U.S. diplomatic corps in 1988.

Mr. Hennessey-Niland’s first diplomatic assignment was to Paris, France in 1988, where he served in the Consular and Economic sections and as a Staff Aide to the Ambassador.  He was acting Consul of the U.S. Consulate in Martinique in the summer of 1989.  In 1990, he returned to Washington D.C. to be the Staff Aide to the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization (IO) Affairs at the time of the first Gulf conflict.   In 1991 he was a Desk Officer at the Department of State responsible for IO issues and was seconded in 1992 to the U.S. Organizing Committee of the 1994 FIFA World Cup.   He was subsequently assigned to the UN International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia., where he was a member of the Prosecutor’s staff.  In 1997, he was appointed Head of the Political and Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Fiji.  While there, he served as Charge a.i. and organized the evacuation of the American community during the 2000 coup d’état.   In 2001, he returned to the U.S. and was responsible for trade issues in the Bureau of European Affairs at the State Department.  From 2003 to 2005 Mr. Hennessey-Niland was the Desk Officer for Danish and Norwegian Affairs and played a leading role in negotiations to establish a new civilian and military relationship between the U.S., Denmark and Greenland.  In 2005, Mr. Hennessey-Niland was selected to attend France’s Grand Ecole, the Ecole Nationale d’Administration and served afterwards in the Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Paris, where he was responsible for Trade and IPR.

John Hennessey-Niland’s foreign languages are French and Dutch.  He is a graduate of numerous specialized courses and is an alumnus of the Brookings Institute Young Leaders program.  He is the recipient of several individual and group Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards.

John is married to Julie and they have two sons, Connor and Aidan.  His other great passion in life is soccer and he is a licensed soccer coach and continues to play and coach when he has time.