Upon the death of his father, he returned home to manage the family farm near Carndonagh in the north of Inishowen, County Donegal.

[6] After Jim McDaid's retirement and Niall Blaney's decision to step down from politics for personal reasons, Fianna Fáil had no sitting TD in Donegal North-East to contest the 2011 general election.

[9] On 1 July 2020, McConalogue was appointed as a Minister of State at the Department of Justice with responsibility for law reform.

[10] On 2 September that year, he was appointed as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, with the vacancy having arisen following the Oireachtas Golf Society scandal.

He went shopping in Dublin hours ahead of a scheduled five-day follow-up COVID-19 test which led to the positive result he received on 23 December.