Catherine Ita Ahern (née Liston; 13 January 1915 – 27 December 2007) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Kerry North constituency from 1977 to 1981 and a Senator from 1964 to 1977.

In the 1979 Fianna Fáil leadership election, she supported the failed attempt by George Colley and thereafter fell afoul of his successful rival Charles Haughey, who prevented her from returning to the Seanad by favouring others.

Her Parthian shot was to defect to the newly created Progressive Democrats in 1985, a splinter party from Fianna Fáil filled with many of Haughey's opponents.

She grew up in a politically conscientious household: Her father, Patrick Liston, was known as "the Painter" because he painted banners for Parnellite rallies while her grandmother Kate McAuliffe had been involved in the Ladies' Land League.

[3] Ahern's first major political role came in 1964, when she was nominated to Seanad Éireann by the Taoiseach, Seán Lemass,[4] to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha.

Labour's Evelyn Owens was elected as Leas-Chathaoirleach, but Ahern won the support not just of her Fianna Fáil colleagues but also of Mary Robinson then an independent senator.

When Haughey didn't nominate her for the Seanad after the February 1982 Irish general election, it was clear his position had been cemented and that Ahern was now frozen out within Fianna Fáil.

Ahern felt embittered, believing that over the course of her 13 years in the Seanad she had built up considerable new support for Fianna Fáil in Kerry, only for her to be simply discarded by Haughey due to internal politics.

Nonetheless, in 1985 Ahern joined the Progressive Democrats, a splinter party from Fianna Fáil led by an Haughey archrival Desmond O'Malley.

Only for Jack Lynch keeping his cool on the Northern issue in 1968, we would have had a civil war, no doubt about that.”[10] She died in Tralee in December 2007,[1] aged almost 93.