June 24, 2025 View all news Friends of the Earth Ireland has today [24th June] announced that it has selected Deirdre Duffy as its new Chief Executive. Deirdre’s appointment by the Friends of the Earth Board follows an extensive and competitive recruitment process. Currently serving as the Director of Impact, Grants and Donor Care at Community Foundation Ireland, Deirdre will start her post from 25th August 2025. Deirdre brings extensive leadership experience, an understanding of campaigns and movement building as well as a focus on policy. In her current role with Community Foundation Ireland, she is working closely with grassroots environmental groups, national legal and advocacy organisations, academic experts, and policy advisors to identify and fund interventions for systemic environmental change in Ireland. Placing climate justice at the heart of the organisation’s equality mission has been a key focus of her work. Deirdre is perhaps best known for her role as Campaign Manager for Together for Yes, a campaign which successfully brought together a very diverse movement to work for and achieve Repeal of the 8th Amendment. She has also held senior roles in the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, drawing on her background as a human rights lawyer. Commenting on Deirdre’s appointment, Anna Pringle, Chair of Friends of the Earth, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Deirdre to the Friends of the Earth team. Deirdre’s values and her background in human rights give her a really strong understanding of climate justice and she will bring that rights-based approach to our campaigns. Deirdre puts ‘radical listening’ at the core of her work too and that will be so essential to supporting the movement for positive change.”Deirdre Duffy, Friends of the Earth’s incoming Chief Executive, said:“Climate change isn’t just about carbon—it’s about people. It’s the defining human rights and social justice issue of our time. I’m delighted to join Friends of the Earth Ireland at this critical moment, when we must rapidly decarbonise while empowering all communities to shape their own fair and positive transition. I’m excited to work with this powerful movement that puts the people most affected at the heart of climate action. This is about fairness, dignity, and acting now with urgency and purpose.”Friends of the Earth is Ireland’s leading environmental campaigning organisation whose work involves campaigning for environmental and social justice, respect for human rights and a world where both people and nature thrive. Its work involves pushing the Irish Government to reduce polluting emissions fast enough to meet Ireland’s legally binding pollution limits and fairly enough to reduce poverty and inequality. In particular, Friends of the Earth is campaigning for a moratorium on new data centres that threaten the sustainability of Ireland’s energy system and against the import of climate wrecking Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Friends of the Earth is also campaigning to secure warm and climate friendly homes for people renting and living in social housing. Friends of the Earth Ireland is a part of Friends of the Earth International; the largest grassroots network of environmental activists and groups in the world - which links grassroots, national and global struggles to protect both people and nature. ENDS