Ambassador of Ireland to Sierra Leone

Welcome message

Dia dhaoibh go léir. Fáilte go hAmbasáid na hÉireann!

I was privileged to take up my post as Ireland’s Ambassador to Sierra Leone in August 2025. On behalf of the embassy team here in Freetown I am delighted to welcome you to our website, which I hope you will find useful and informative. In addition to providing information on the services provided by the Embassy of Ireland, it is a source of facts on Ireland and Sierra Leone, and on the longstanding partnership between our two countries.

Irish Missionaries led the way and for a period of over 150 years have provided great service to the people of Sierra Leone, particularly in the areas of healthcare and education. The Government of Ireland established a development office in Sierra Leone in 2005, and in 2014 we opened our Embassy, which now covers many areas – cultural, political, development and economic.

We have a vibrant and high impact development cooperation programme in Sierra Leone, focusing on the areas of education, gender, governance and nutrition and food security. Across these four areas we have placed women and adolescent girls at the centre of all our interventions and have more recently started to also address the increasing challenge of climate change in our programmes.

In 2024, after extensive consultation with the Government of Sierra Leone and our implementing partners, we adopted a four year (2024-2028) country strategy. This strategy will build on our successful partnerships to date and will seek to maximise our contribution to the Sierra Leone’s National Development Plan 2024-2030. Our Strategy sets out Ireland's ambition to deepen bilateral, political, economic and cultural cooperation between Ireland and Sierra Leone. It reflects our priorities across the five pillars of Global Island: Ireland's Foreign Policy for a Changing World, and has as its overarching goal to promote Ireland's values and interests in Sierra Leone. Ireland's development cooperation in Sierra Leone is aligned to A Better World: Ireland's Policy for International Development.

Both Ireland and Sierra Leone understand first-hand how conflict can shape communities and identities, but importantly, also how reconciliation and mutual understanding can build lasting peace and prosperity. With the opening of Sierra Leone’s new embassy in Ireland in 2025 I hope to explore how our two countries can share our respective journeys towards peace with each other and the world.

We also plan to expand our private sector and trade engagement and to explore opportunities to link interested private sector entities to increase trade between Ireland and Sierra Leone.

We would strongly encourage all Irish Citizens resident in, or visiting Sierra Leone for prolonged periods, to Register with the Embassy.

We also arrange cultural and social events for our Irish community and friends. If you would like to be added to our database to attend these events, please Contact Us. I hope you will learn more about our work on the pages of our website and I invite you to follow us on X at @IrlEmbFreetown or on Facebook where you will see regular updates on all of our activities.

With best wishes,

Patrick McManus

Ambassador of Ireland to Sierra Leone