Author Archives: Mark Holan

About Mark Holan

I am an Irish-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. I obtained Irish citizenship in 1997 through my immigrant grandparents from County Kerry. I have traveled to Ireland a dozen times and explored most of the island, including the partitioned north. I have written nearly 1,000 posts for this blog since 2012 in addition to freelance work for popular and academic publications.

Four great stories about American journalists in Ireland

Remembering COVID’s deadly impact on St. Patrick’s Day; Cardinal McElroy praises Irish immigrants

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UPDATE:

Cardinal McElroy at St. Patrick Church, Washington, DC, March 17, 2025.

Robert Cardinal McElroy has confirmed his Irish heritage and praised earlier generations of Irish immigrants who contributed to the success of America. The fifth generation San Franciscan did not specify his family’s county of origin as he celebrated his first St. Patrick’s Day Mass as the newly installed archbishop of Washington. He assured the congregation at St. Patrick Church in downtown DC that his heritage has been confirmed by DNA testing.

Cardinal McElroy also gave a shout out to Epic: The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin. He said the museum’s modern story-telling techniques of Ireland’s nineteenth century immigrants was “a beautiful, moving experience.” He said that despite different personalities and backgrounds, the immigrants were “filled with Christian hope,” the belief that God is always with us, regardless of our circumstances. He reminded the congregation that “hope is at the center of our faith and the theme of this Jubilee Year.”

ORIGINAL POST:

It’s now five years since COVID-19 began spreading sickness and death across the world. The cancelation of St. Patrick’s Day parades and related events in America and Ireland became an early, signal sign of the pandemic’s impact on our daily lives. It was hardly the most important development, to be sure, but it certainly presaged the misery and disruptions that lay ahead. Annual parades did not return in most cities until March 2022. This year, I want to remember all those who suffered, especially the earliest fatalities in March 2020. May God rest their souls.

For something lighter, below are a few links to previous posts with historical perspectives on the Irish holiday in America, and my page devoted to St. Patrick’s churches. Enjoy. MH

Stained glass image of St. Patrick in Harrisburg, Pa. church.

3rd annual Washington Forum on Northern Ireland

Martin survives ‘Trump show’ in early St. Patrick’s Day events

References
↑1	See my post, ‘Special relationship’ or the fading of the green?
↑2	See my post, Remembering Jimmy Carter’s words on Northern Ireland

When the Irish ‘exposed’ a New York Herald reporter

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In June 1919 the Irish American press praised New York Herald correspondent Truman H. Talley for publicizing a report that criticized the British administration of Ireland. Three months later, as the Herald published Talley’s own investigation of Ireland, the same papers called him a British propagandist. Irish nationalists on both sides of the Atlantic cited what they described as evidence of Talley’s bias. The episode demonstrated how these partisans kept a close watch on correspondents who visited Ireland and monitored their coverage in the foreign press.

Truman Talley’s 1918 passport photo.

Talley joined the ranks of American journalists in Europe at the end of the First World War. The 6-foot-tall, Rock Port, Missouri native had worked at the Herald since 1915. Now 27, Talley soon began to file cable dispatches from London and Paris.^[1]National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series: Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 – March 31, 1925; Roll #: 621; Volume #: Roll 0621 – … Continue reading He did not travel to Dublin in January 1919 to witness the opening of the separatist Dáil Éireann; the Herald used Associated Press coverage. Talley also remained in London in May when the American Commission on Irish Independence visited Ireland. His cables to New York were based on the British press, which Talley described as “deeply stirred” by the pro-independence speeches of the three Irish American visitors.^[2]“Walsh Mission To Ireland Evokes London Protest”, New York Herald, May 5, 1919.

In June, when the American Commission’s Frank P. Walsh and Edward Dunne released their report on British coercion in Ireland,^[3]Michael J. Ryan, the Commission’s third member, did not sign the report. Talley became the first journalist to “spread before the American people the full report on Irish conditions.”^[4]“England Must Act,” from Harvey’s Weekly, June 21, 1919, republished in the Gaelic American, July 5, 1919. He laid out all seventeen of the report’s charges and quoted passages at length. Talley’s story began on the front page and filled an inside page of the Herald’s Sunday edition, its two hundred thousand copy circulation double the usual weekday distribution.^[5]N.W. Ayer & Son’s American Newspaper Annual & Directory (Philadelphia: N.W. Ayer & Son’s, 1919) New York City papers, 648-684.

Syndication increased the story’s readership across the country. The Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, and Gaelic American, both of New York, and the Irish Press of Philadelphia, republished Talley’s story.^[6]“World Stunned By Atrocities In Ireland”, Irish World; “Horrors Of English Prisons In Ireland”, Gaelic American; and “Savage British Atrocities Shown In Walsh-Dunne Report” , Irish … Continue reading Dr. Patrick McCartan, Sinn Féin’s envoy to America and editor of the Irish Press, recalled Talley’s “vivid picture of the British press eyeing the report malignantly.”^[7]Patrick McCartan, With De Valera In America. [New York: Brentano, 1932], 118. Gaelic American editor John Devoy praised the Herald for its “feat of alert and enterprising journalism.”^[8]“English Atrocities in Ireland,” Gaelic American, June 21, 1919.

Some pro-British readers criticized the Herald for publicizing the Walsh-Dunne report. In an editorial reply, the daily said it published Talley’s account “because it is news of the first importance” with serious implication for Anglo-American relations. The editorial emphasized the paper was not passing judgement on the merits of the allegations and “in view of the conflict of the evidence at hand … (was) having its own investigation made.”^[9]“The Case of Ireland”, New York Herald, June 26, 1919.

With that, Talley finally headed across the Irish Sea.

Talley in Ireland

“I went to Ireland as an impartial American seeking the truth,” the correspondent told the Herald’s readers when his “Truth About Ireland” series debuted on Sept. 7, 1919.^[10]“Full And Free Inquiry Shows Cruelty To Irish Political Prisoners False”, New York Herald, Sept. 7, 1919. He had spent about about four weeks in the country during July and August and “retraced the path followed by the Irish American delegation.” Talley portrayed the Walsh-Dunne report as false or exaggerated, especially regarding the treatment of political prisoners, and challenged Sinn Féin’s legitimacy to establish an Irish republic. His book-length series appeared almost daily, more than three dozen installments that stretched into November.

But Irish partisans were also at work—publicly and privately—to undermine Talley’s reporting from Ireland.

The Irish Independent of Aug. 1, 1919,—a month before Talley’s series debuted—reported the correspondent was “pursuing an ‘independent’ investigation in a government motor car, attended by military and police guardians.”^[11]”U.S. Pressman On Ireland”, Irish Independent, Aug. 1, 1919. Placing “independent” in quotes is telling; it conveyed skepticism of Talley’s description of his work. US newspapers were doing the same thing at the same time with “President” and “Irish Republic” as Éamon de Valera made his tour of America.^[12]See my post, “How Dev’s tour shifted U.S. press coverage of Ireland”, July 19, 2019.

Arthur Griffith

The Independent reported that Talley declared he would hardly have known there was any unrest in Ireland if not for the carbine-totting constable seated at his side in the car. “There is no military occupation or distinction,” Talley said. “The soldiers constitute a reserve force which may never be called upon unless the Sinn Féin adherents attempt to effect a coup d’etat.”

Talley interviewed Sinn Féin’s Arthur Griffith in Dublin. Ireland’s acting leader told the visiting journalist that the country was “becoming the Mecca of American newspapermen.”^[13]“ ‘Acting President’ of Ireland on ‘The Cause’”, New York Herald, Nov. 23, 1919. Quotation is Talley’s paraphrase of Griffith’s remarks, not a direct quote. Talley quoted Griffith … Continue reading Privately, Griffith wrote to de Valera in America to alert him of the conversation with Talley and a separate encounter with John Steel of the Chicago Tribune:^[14]Steele was a Belfast native who began his newspaper career in the United States, including the New York Herald. He returned to Europe earlier in 1919 as the Chicago Tribune’s London bureau chief. … Continue reading

“I told Talley if he wanted to see the country fairly, he should go around independently. He said he would. He left Dublin and absolutely put himself in their hands and toured the country in government motors accompanied by English government officers. I don’t know what stuff he is writing, but whatever it is you may take it as Dublin Castle’s voice.”^[15]Griffith to de Valera, Aug. 18, 1919. Similar language in Griffith to de Valera, Aug. 29, 1919. Éamon de Valera papers, University College Dublin, P150/727. Thanks to historian Daniel Carey of … Continue reading

Talley was not the first, and would not be the last, journalist to accept transportation from either side of the war between Irish separatists and British authorities. Fourteen London-based newspaper correspondents boarded a British naval destroyer that steamed to Dublin during the April 1916 Rising.^[16]See my post, “When a boatload of reporters steamed to the Easter Rising”, Sept. 15, 2023. Several American correspondents in Ireland described being blindfolded by rebel foot soldiers and driven surreptitiously to rendezvous with leaders such de Valera and Michael Collins. Other reporters hired drivers of private motor cars or jaunting cars, navigated the Irish railways system, or simply walked to where they were going.

It is unclear whether Griffith learned about Talley from the Independent’s story, or if the well-connected Irish leader, himself a journalist, first tipped the paper about the American correspondent. By late August, the Gaelic American in New York also reported Talley’s touring in British military motor cars. Devoy’s paper cited the Independent as its source.

“Mr. Talley has been dined and wined by England’s satraps in Ireland and in return for this hospitality he has whitewashed martial law and militarism in Ireland,” the Gaelic American reported. “He is certainly trying to make himself worthy of his hire.”^[17]“On His Majesty’s Service”, Gaelic American, Aug. 30, 1919.

John Devoy

In addition the chauffeur services, Devoy criticized Talley’s July 20 Herald story about a post-war “peace parade” in Dublin. The correspondent described the large turnout and cheering for the parading troops as “striking evidence of loyalty” to the London government. “…all Dublin was surprised and the Sinn Féin chagrined that such a demonstration and loyal outpouring would mark the event, especially since there were present all the elements to make trouble if the Sinn Féin wanted trouble. … (The) demonstration and spectacle bore eloquent witness that Ireland’s heart still is with the Empire.”^[18]”Dublin Displays Her Loyalty At A Big Peace Parade”, New York Herald, July 20, 1919.

Attacks continue

As Talley’s “Truth About Ireland” series unspooled in the Herald, Devoy continued to attack it in the Gaelic American. An editorial headlined “The ‘Herald’s’ English Propaganda” circled back to Talley’s June coverage of the Walsh-Dunne report:

Talley is a trained newspaper man and if not under orders to lie and misrepresent would probably tell the truth. Some time ago he cabled to the Herald the substance of the report of Frank P. Walsh and Edward F. Dunne on British atrocities in Ireland and the paper published it full. It was a good stroke of journalism, because the English papers had suppressed it, the censor had forbidden its publication in Ireland, and therefore, up to the Herald’s publication, the American people had no knowledge of it. People began to look to the Herald for ‘scoops’ about Ireland and to regard Talley as an enterprising American journalist who could be depended upon to give them.^[19]“The ‘Herald’s’ English Propaganda”, Gaelic American, Sept. 13, 1919.

Such trust was misplaced, Devoy continued. The editorial repeated the same two sentences about Talley being “dined and wined by England’s satraps in Ireland” and the correspondent making himself “worthy of his hire” from the front page story a few weeks earlier. Devoy also said the Herald tried to buy advertising in his paper to promote Talley’s upcoming series, but he refused this because of the Independent’s story about Talley’s rides with the British authorities.

Opening installment of Talley’s “Truth About Ireland” series, including editor’s note, Sept. 7, 1919.

The Gaelic American’s broadside against Talley and the Herald continued for several weeks as Devoy refuted the reporting nearly point by point. The weekly highlighted correspondence from Griffith, who “exposed the hollowness of the pretensions” of Talley’s claim of being an “impartial investigator.” In addition to repeating the car story, Griffith alleged that during his meeting with Talley, the correspondent “frankly admitted to us that his paper was inimical and that he was ‘prejudiced against Sinn Féin.’ ”^[20]See “New York Herald’s War On the Irish Cause”, Gaelic American, Sept. 20, 1919; “Talley Continues His Attacks on Ireland”, Gaelic American, Sept. 27, 1919; and “Talley Exposed by Arthur … Continue reading

The attacks by Devoy and Griffith are also notable for relitigating the Herald’s coverage of Charles Stewart Parnell’s 1880 visit to America, and the testimony of Herald correspondent Chester Ives during the “Parnellism and Crime” inquiry of 1889. Devoy was a reporter at the Herald in 1880, nine years after his exile to America for Fenian activities in Ireland. He worked among the press who covered Parnell’s visit and simultaneously maneuvered behind the scenes to assist the nationalist MP. Devoy accused the late Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett Jr. of working to undermine Parnell’s fundraising for the Land League in Ireland. The Herald, in its presentation of Talley’s series, recalled Bennett’s $100,000 relief fund for Ireland as proof the paper was not biased against the country.^[21]”Herald’s Irish Relief Work Not Forgotten”, New York Herald, Sept. 21, 1919. I’ll explore this aspect in a future post.

More reaction

Talley’s series also drew the attention of Daniel T. O’Connell, director of the Irish National Bureau in Washington, D.C, the publicity arm of the Friends of Irish Freedom. In a letter to Walsh of the American Commission, he described Talley’s series as “a bold piece of British propaganda.” Walsh replied that he was “keeping track” of Talley’s series and, if he deemed it wise, would “make a concise reply after the appearance of his final article.”^[22]From O’Connell to Walsh, Sept. 11, 1919; Walsh to O’Connell, Sept. 15, 1919, in Frank P. Walsh papers, MssCol 3211, New York Public Library.

Frank P. Walsh

O’Connell had no such restraint. The weekly News Letter he published warned readers that “Tally seeks to convince the American public the articles are without bias or prejudice. It is safe to assert, however, that a jury of any twelve well-trained newspaper correspondents, would, after reading the first five articles, convict Talley of gross prejudice toward Ireland.”^[23]No headline, Irish National Bureau’s News Letter, Sept. 19, 1919.

The same jury, presumably, would also find the News Letter guilty of being an Irish propaganda organ.

Talley’s series had another problem. It trailed by the British government’s official denial of the Walsh-Dunne report. Walsh urged American newspapers and magazines to give “equal publicity” to his editorial replies to the British response.^[24]To Chicago Examiner, Aug. 2, 1919; Harvey’s Weekly, Aug. 4, 1919, Walsh papers, NYPL. It does not appear that Walsh responded to Talley’s series, based on a review of the Herald through Dec. 31, 1919.

Other readers did respond to the series; more than 30 letters to the editor of the Herald, which in three issues filled up most of a page.^[25]New York Herald, Sept. 21, Sept. 28, and Oct. 16, 1919. The opinions ranged from support to opposition of Talley’s work, or why the Herald was even bothering with the story. A sampling:

“To hell with England and you, also your opinion about Ireland …”
“I have twenty-three years been a reader of the Herald and always will be on account of Mr. Talley’s ‘truth and nothing but the truth.'”
“Surely we have enough domestic matters in our great country to occupy the attention of our politicians instead of their time being taken up by the discontent of a foreign corner of the earth, such as Ireland.”

The Herald circulated Talley’s series to newspapers across the US and Canada. Some of these papers edited the reporting into a single feature. The News Letter worried that “Talley’s articles will influence readers to blame the newspapers publishing his articles. Many will find it difficult to distinguish between the author and the medium of expressing his prejudiced views.”^[26]News Letter, Sept. 19, 1919.

This is an important point. O’Connell wanted readers to disregard Talley’s anti-Irish reporting, but he did not want them to lose confidence in the papers that published it. Just as Griffith noted the rise of American correspondents to Ireland, O’Connell recognized many of these journalists would write stories that were helpful to Ireland in these same papers.

Devoy was less concerned. He predicted Talley’s series “will make no impression on the American public because their partisanship is not even disguised.”^[27]“New York Herald’s War On the Irish Cause”, Gaelic American, Sept. 20, 1919.

Afterward

Talley’s series and the Walsh-Dunne report soon enough were left in the wake of ongoing developments in the Irish war of independence. Nearly a year after his series debuted, Talley wrote:

Events of the utmost significance are crowding upon one other so rapidly in Ireland at the present time that it is frequently difficult to assess any or all of them at their true relative value or to discern their precise cause and effect beyond, of course, the daily generalization that the situation is still more serious and nearer a calamitous climax. Every day the first pages of the newspapers contribute further complexities to this age-old and bitterest of modern political dramas. News, as such, coming from Ireland for weeks and months past has been anything but dull and desultory; it has bristled with violence and bulged with rumblings of impending bloodshed on a widespread scale.^[28]“Sinn Féin’s Provocative Martyrdom”, New York Times, Aug. 29, 1920.

Irish separatists and the British government each kept a close eye on visiting correspondents and monitor foreign press coverage of Ireland. In January 1920 Dublin Castle authorities seized American newspapers shipped to the Irish capital because they contained coverage of the Irish bond drive in the United States, which was led by de Valera and Walsh. The British Embassy in Washington, D.C. regularly assessed the Irish news coverage and editorials in American papers. Officials there described the New York Herald as “friendly to us.”^[29]Document 32, #11767, “The American Press”, from the British Embassy, Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 1921, p. 130 in Kenneth Bourne and D. Cameron Watt, general editors, British Documents on Foreign … Continue reading Irish-American organs such as the Gaelic American and News Letter continued to question the self-declared impartiality of American correspondents in Ireland. They criticized what they found objectionable, praised what supported the Irish cause.

Griffith died suddenly in August 1922, during the Irish Civil War. Devoy lived until 1928. Talley served as European manager of the New York Herald News Service and a special writer for the New York Times and national magazines such as World’s Work and McClure’s. In 1922 he joined Fox Movietone News, where he revolutionized newsreel production and distribution, “a new type of pictorial journalism designed to do away with the monotony and lack of personality of the old.”^[30]”Truman Talley Dies; Movietone Executive”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 19, 1941. Talley died in 1941–22 years after Irish partisans exposed his ride through Ireland with the British military.

References[+]

References
↑1	National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series: Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 – March 31, 1925; Roll #: 621; Volume #: Roll 0621 – Certificates: 43500-43749, 05 Nov 1918-06 Nov 1918; Ancestry.com. U.S.
↑2	“Walsh Mission To Ireland Evokes London Protest”, New York Herald, May 5, 1919.
↑3	Michael J. Ryan, the Commission’s third member, did not sign the report.
↑4	“England Must Act,” from Harvey’s Weekly, June 21, 1919, republished in the Gaelic American, July 5, 1919.
↑5	N.W. Ayer & Son’s American Newspaper Annual & Directory (Philadelphia: N.W. Ayer & Son’s, 1919) New York City papers, 648-684.
↑6	“World Stunned By Atrocities In Ireland”, Irish World; “Horrors Of English Prisons In Ireland”, Gaelic American; and “Savage British Atrocities Shown In Walsh-Dunne Report” , Irish Press, all on June 21, 1919.
↑7	Patrick McCartan, With De Valera In America. [New York: Brentano, 1932], 118.
↑8	“English Atrocities in Ireland,” Gaelic American, June 21, 1919.
↑9	“The Case of Ireland”, New York Herald, June 26, 1919.
↑10	“Full And Free Inquiry Shows Cruelty To Irish Political Prisoners False”, New York Herald, Sept. 7, 1919.
↑11	”U.S. Pressman On Ireland”, Irish Independent, Aug. 1, 1919.
↑12	See my post, “How Dev’s tour shifted U.S. press coverage of Ireland”, July 19, 2019.
↑13	“ ‘Acting President’ of Ireland on ‘The Cause’”, New York Herald, Nov. 23, 1919. Quotation is Talley’s paraphrase of Griffith’s remarks, not a direct quote. Talley quoted Griffith elsewhere in this story.
↑14	Steele was a Belfast native who began his newspaper career in the United States, including the New York Herald. He returned to Europe earlier in 1919 as the Chicago Tribune’s London bureau chief. Griffith dismissed him as an “Ulster Protestant.” See Note 15. Steele later claimed credit for helping with the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. See my post, ” ‘The Republic of Ireland is dead; long live … ‘ “, Jan. 7, 2022. Steele reported on Ireland into the 1930s.
↑15	Griffith to de Valera, Aug. 18, 1919. Similar language in Griffith to de Valera, Aug. 29, 1919. Éamon de Valera papers, University College Dublin, P150/727. Thanks to historian Daniel Carey of Dublin for help deciphering Griffith’s penmanship.
↑16	See my post, “When a boatload of reporters steamed to the Easter Rising”, Sept. 15, 2023.
↑17	“On His Majesty’s Service”, Gaelic American, Aug. 30, 1919.
↑18	”Dublin Displays Her Loyalty At A Big Peace Parade”, New York Herald, July 20, 1919.
↑19	“The ‘Herald’s’ English Propaganda”, Gaelic American, Sept. 13, 1919.
↑20	See “New York Herald’s War On the Irish Cause”, Gaelic American, Sept. 20, 1919; “Talley Continues His Attacks on Ireland”, Gaelic American, Sept. 27, 1919; and “Talley Exposed by Arthur Griffith”, Gaelic American, Oct. 11, 1919; and others.
↑21	”Herald’s Irish Relief Work Not Forgotten”, New York Herald, Sept. 21, 1919. I’ll explore this aspect in a future post.
↑22	From O’Connell to Walsh, Sept. 11, 1919; Walsh to O’Connell, Sept. 15, 1919, in Frank P. Walsh papers, MssCol 3211, New York Public Library.
↑23	No headline, Irish National Bureau’s News Letter, Sept. 19, 1919.
↑24	To Chicago Examiner, Aug. 2, 1919; Harvey’s Weekly, Aug. 4, 1919, Walsh papers, NYPL.
↑25	New York Herald, Sept. 21, Sept. 28, and Oct. 16, 1919.
↑26	News Letter, Sept. 19, 1919.
↑27	“New York Herald’s War On the Irish Cause”, Gaelic American, Sept. 20, 1919.
↑28	“Sinn Féin’s Provocative Martyrdom”, New York Times, Aug. 29, 1920.
↑29	Document 32, #11767, “The American Press”, from the British Embassy, Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 1921, p. 130 in Kenneth Bourne and D. Cameron Watt, general editors, British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports And Papers From The Foreign Office Confidential Print. Part II, Series C, Vol. 1. [University Publications of America, Inc., 1986.]
↑30	”Truman Talley Dies; Movietone Executive”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 19, 1941.

Could Maine potatoes have relieved Irish hunger in 1925?

Milton Bronner’s “extensive trip up and down the western counties of Ireland” in February 1925 covered the most forlorn districts of the island at the bleakest time of the year. He came to investigate whether famine had also visited these remote parts of the three-year-old Irish Free State.^[1]”Erin Revealed As Suffering Hunger’s Pangs”, Bangor (Maine) Daily Commercial, Feb. 24, 1925. Such a frightening possibility fell within the lifespan of those who remembered the mid-nineteenth century collapse of Ireland’s most important food staple, the potato.

Near Galway, the American journalist entered one of the “usual shanties of this coast—stone walls, badly thatched roof, one room 20 by 10 feet; its door open so light could penetrate; the floor bare, rocky earth.” There, he listened to the lament, “in curious sing-song English,” of Mrs. Bartley Connelly, the mother of eight children:

And the black rain fell. All day and every day. All spring it fell and all summer and all the rest of the year. Always the rain, the dull roar of it. Sorrow and sorrow’s sorrow. The potatoes were washed away or rotted. And the turf melted away with the wetness. No food for the pot. No turf for the fire. Emptiness and blackness in the house. And the children cryin’ because of the hunger and cold.^[2]This passage was edited shorter in some newspaper presentations of the story. Bronner reported that Bartley Connelly, the 45-year-old husband and father, was working as a farm laborer and away from … Continue reading

This photo of a mother and two children–not the Connelly family–appeared in newspapers that syndicated Martin Bronner’s 1925 series about privation in the west of Ireland. Waco (Texas) News-Tribune, Feb. 23, 1925.

This was the scene-setter for the first installment of Bronner’s three-part series about privation and poverty in the rural west of Ireland. The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) syndicated his stories to its more than 400 member publications in the US and Canada.^[3]The 1925 Ayer & Son’s directory listed more than 22,000 periodicals in North America and US territories, including 2,465 daily newspapers. It is unclear how many NEA subscribers published … Continue reading February 1925 marked the peak of what has since come to be known as Ireland’s “forgotten famine,” an episode remembered today by a Wikipedia page. The entry cites Irish historian and podcaster Fin Dwyer’s 2014 piece in TheJournal.ie, among other sources.

Milton Bronner in 1922 newspaper advertisement.

Bronner had spent half of his 50 years as a newspaper man, working his way up from reporter to editor of the small daily in Covington, Kentucky, his native state, to NEA’s London-based correspondent since 1920.^[4]”Milton Bronner, Reporter Retired Since ’42, Dies After Long Illness”, (Louisville, Ky.) Courier Journal, Jan. 7, 1959. He came to my attention in a 2023 RTÉ piece by Noel Carolan, which focused on international coverage of Ireland’s 1925 food crisis. Bronner’s series and other foreign press forced the Irish government to give more attention to the problem, which it earlier had minimized. It also prompted limited external support to the suffering residents, though nothing near the scale of the American Committee for Relief in Ireland effort of 1921.

As Carolan details, Bronner’s series was more impactful because of the “persuasive photojournalism” that accompanied the narrative. Lighter cameras with faster shutter speeds introduced in the 1920s were beginning to revolutionize news photography.^[5]Library of Congress prints and photographs : an illustrated guide. [Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1994], 32. Images of faraway people and places were still a novelty to American newspaper readers a century ago. But the photographer who joined Bronner in the west of Ireland was not named in the newspapers that published these images, at least not those available for review in digital archives. Carolan did not address the mystery photographer. Nothing in Bronner’s 1959 news obituary suggests that he might have taken photos to support his reporting in Ireland or elsewhere. Readers are encouraged to provide information about the photographer’s identity—perhaps an Irish or British stringer hired for the job.

Bronner’s visit to Mrs. Connelly’s cabin was not his first trip to Ireland. In the summer of 1920 he reported on sectarian riots in Belfast and interviewed Arthur Griffith in Dublin as the war of independence approached a crescendo of violence. After the July 1921 truce he covered the London negotiations between Sinn Féin representatives and the British government that resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. Bronner was back in Ireland the following month for the handover of Dublin Castle and other government buildings from British authorities to the new Irish Free State. He interviewed Free State leader Timothy Healy for a series of dispatches at St. Patrick’s Day 1923 as the country struggled to end its civil war. Bronner interviewed Williams Cosgrave in December 1924, just two months before his trip to the western counties.^[6]These stories appeared in various US and Canadian newspapers that published NEA’s syndicated content. Search results from Newspapers.com archive.

Bronner was certainly moved by the lilting brogues, “wretched” housing, and barefoot children of Mrs. Connelly and others he met and interviewed. But he was hardly a naïve young reporter, like some of the American correspondents who just a few years earlier had made their first trips to Ireland to cover the revolutionary period. Bronner reported that he had “not heard of a single authenticated death from starvation or from typhus fever” during his travels in the west. Still, he added: “I have marveled that the people survive the hardships of their lives.”

Maine potatoes

Delegation from Maine posed outside the White House on Jan. 31, 1925, after discussing the potato embargo. Library of Congress.

Bronner’s series had particular resonance on the pages of the Bangor (Maine) Daily Commercial. In a front-page sidebar to the correspondent’s first installment, the paper alleged that British government officials had conspired with Canadian growers to block shipments of abundant Maine potatoes from Ireland. The foreigners speciously charged that the Maine spuds were infected with a common potato bug. Shortly before Bronner’s series debuted, a delegation representing Maine potato farmers traveled to Washington to lobby US Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and President Calvin Coolidge for help to repeal the embargo.

In most newspapers that published Bronner’s series, the first installment opened with these two sentences:

Hunger sits down at table as an unwelcome and bitterly feared guest and Cold keeps him company in thousands of cabin homes today in western Ireland. That is what a partial potato crop failure and peat bog shortage mean for Galway and Donegal and Kerry and Mayo.

In the Daily Commercial, the opening text was amended to read:

Maine potatoes remain in Maine, while hunger sits down at table as an unwelcome and bitterly feared guest and cold keeps him company in thousands of cabin homes today in western Ireland. That is what a potato crop failure and peat bog shortage in Ireland, coupled with the embargo placed by Great Britain on American potatoes, mean for Galway and Donegal and Kerry and Mayo.

The Daily Commercial also denounced “the selfishness of the British government” in a separate editorial. “Our government has done all that it could and pointed out there are more beetles in the Canadian potatoes than in those of Aroostook (County, Maine), but England has persisted. And so there is unnecessary privation in Ireland, much suffering that might have been vastly alleviated.”^[7]”Potato Embargo And Real Facts”, Bangor (Maine) Daily Commercial, Feb. 25, 1925.

The alleged embargo was actually part of wider and more longstanding trade problems between the United States, Great Britain and the Irish Free State; complicated in part by the 1920 partition of Northern Ireland. US officials “accepted that most members of the new (Irish) government were inexperienced both from a political and economic perspective, that the Free State was underdeveloped economically and that both industry and agriculture were in a depressed state.”^[8]See the “Economic work” subsection, pp 503-526, in Chapter 12 of Bernadette Whelan, United States Foreign Policy and Ireland: From Empire to Independence, 1913-29. [Dublin: Four Courts … Continue reading Most of these problems were resolved over the coming years, but not in time to feed Mrs. Connelly’s family and other desperate residents of Ireland’s impoverished west. The inability to ship Maine potatoes to Ireland does not appear to have gained traction beyond the New England state, based on my search of US and Irish digital newspaper archives.

Other coverage

The Irish government allocated £500,000 for relief and provided 6,000 tons of coal, as Bronner and other news sources reported. An official statement insisted, “The comparison with 1847 is extravagant, and there is no general famine.”^[9]”Minimize Irish Famine”, New York Times, Feb. 3, 1925. Opposition leader Eamon de Valera blamed an “English press scare” for distorting the matter, adding that a republican government would have done a better job anticipating the crisis as conditions in the west worsened during the autumn of 1924. ^[10]”Irish Not Starving, Declare Cosgrave”, New York Times, Feb. 1, 1925. The Gaelic American, ever the watchdog of mainstream press coverage about Ireland, also criticized British papers for exaggerating the story to embarrass the Irish government, but said nothing about Bronner’s series.

This photo also accompanied Bronner’s series in many US newspapers. Note the NEA logo in the bottom right corner, but there is no individual photo credit. It is unclear whether the boy is missing his right leg, if it is in shadow, or bent against the wall behind him.

“The Irish press gives the situation its true proportions and recognizes the efficiency of the government’s effort to meet it,” Chicago Daily News foreign correspondent William H. Brayden reported in a Feb. 7 story syndicated to other US papers. “That the situation is not regarded in Ireland with the same apprehension as abroad is evident from the fact that when the Dáil met this week and the ministers were interrogated on many subjects, no deputy raised any questions about conditions in the west.”^[11]”Leader Familiar With Situation”, The Scranton (Pa.) Republican, Feb. 9, 1925.

The Armagh-born Brayden began his career at the Dublin-based Freeman’s Journal, which had folded in December 1924.^[12]Felix M. Larkin, “Brayden, William John Henry“, in the online Dictionary of Irish Biography. Later in 1925 he published the pro-government booklet, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. There, Brayden wrote:

I had heard that this year the farmers were exceptionally hard hit. The cry of famine in Ireland has been uttered in America. I went to Kilkenny expecting to learn something that might confirm these tales of distress.^[13]Brayden, Irish Free State … Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], 28.

Kilkenny was hardly the place to look for food distress in 1925, as Brayden surely knew. Like the government, he downplayed the alleged famine. By summer 1925 improved weather and crop yields had largely resolved the crisis. Brayden wrote of conditions in County Clare:

A few months ago the rain had driven the people to despair of this year’s harvest and to dread another winter as bad as the last. Now the fine weather has completely altered the situation. It is declared in the county that the prospects of a successful season for the farmers have rarely been so bright. In several districts the turf supply was secured and haymaking started by the middle of June on a good crop, while the potato fields are described as in excellent condition.^[14]Brayden, Irish Free State, 35.

Ireland’s “famine” of 1925 was soon forgotten.

Brayden died in 1933. Bronner remained in Europe with NEA until 1942. He interviewed George Bernard Shaw on his 80th birthday in 1936. The Irish writer told the correspondent: “Why should I let you pick my brain for nothing, when in 10 minutes I can write down what I tell you, sign it, send it to (an editor in America), and get a check for $1,000?”^[15]”An 80th Birthday Message From George Bernard Shaw Who Says Proudly ‘Americans Adore Me’ “, The Helena (Mont.) Independent, July 26, 1936. A year later Bronner interviewed de Valera about the Irish Constitution. Bronner retired to his native Louisville, Kentucky.

References[+]

References
↑1	”Erin Revealed As Suffering Hunger’s Pangs”, Bangor (Maine) Daily Commercial, Feb. 24, 1925.
↑2	This passage was edited shorter in some newspaper presentations of the story. Bronner reported that Bartley Connelly, the 45-year-old husband and father, was working as a farm laborer and away from the home at the time of his visit.
↑3	The 1925 Ayer & Son’s directory listed more than 22,000 periodicals in North America and US territories, including 2,465 daily newspapers. It is unclear how many NEA subscribers published Bronner’s series.
↑4	”Milton Bronner, Reporter Retired Since ’42, Dies After Long Illness”, (Louisville, Ky.) Courier Journal, Jan. 7, 1959.
↑5	Library of Congress prints and photographs : an illustrated guide. [Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1994], 32.
↑6	These stories appeared in various US and Canadian newspapers that published NEA’s syndicated content. Search results from Newspapers.com archive.
↑7	”Potato Embargo And Real Facts”, Bangor (Maine) Daily Commercial, Feb. 25, 1925.
↑8	See the “Economic work” subsection, pp 503-526, in Chapter 12 of Bernadette Whelan, United States Foreign Policy and Ireland: From Empire to Independence, 1913-29. [Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006].
↑9	”Minimize Irish Famine”, New York Times, Feb. 3, 1925.
↑10	”Irish Not Starving, Declare Cosgrave”, New York Times, Feb. 1, 1925.
↑11	”Leader Familiar With Situation”, The Scranton (Pa.) Republican, Feb. 9, 1925.
↑12	Felix M. Larkin, “Brayden, William John Henry“, in the online Dictionary of Irish Biography.
↑13	Brayden, Irish Free State … Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], 28.
↑14	Brayden, Irish Free State, 35.
↑15	”An 80th Birthday Message From George Bernard Shaw Who Says Proudly ‘Americans Adore Me’ “, The Helena (Mont.) Independent, July 26, 1936.

Guest post: ‘Serving the poor of Dublin since 1790’

Historian Felix M. Larkin, a trustee of the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society, has given the opening Dublin charities & homelessness lecture at Christ Church Cathedral in the Irish capital. Larkin was the Society’s chairman from 2012 to 2016. His lecture is reproduced below the series poster. Consider making a contribution to the Society. MH

We are gathered in what is probably the oldest part of Dublin, just up from Wood Quay and adjacent to Dublin Castle – and if you exit at the back of the cathedral and walk down Lord Edward Street and Cork Hill, past City Hall, the first turn on your right after City Hall is Palace Street, one of Dublin’s shortest streets. No. 2 Palace Street is one of Dublin’s iconic buildings. For nearly 140 years, between 1855 and 1992, it was home to a charitable society with the strangest of names, the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society. The façade of this eighteenth-century building still bears, in deeply incised lettering, the legend ‘Sick & Indigent Roomkeepers Society, founded A.D. 1790’. The Society boasts that it is Dublin’s oldest surviving charity.

First, a word of explanation about our name. ‘Indigent’ means poor, while the word ‘Roomkeepers’ in the eighteenth century referred to tenants, sometimes entire families, who lived in one room of a house – in other words, tenement dwellers. Some people have asked me from time to time if we were a charity for impoverished members of the hospitality industry, innkeepers and the like. But no, ‘Roomkeepers’ in the original meaning of the word were those who lived in one room in a tenement – poor, but not perhaps the poorest of the poor.

As recorded in the History of the City of Dublin, by Warburton, Whitelaw & Walsh, the Society was founded by ‘a few individuals in the middle ranks of life [who], inhabiting a part of the town where the population was poor and crowded, had daily opportunities of knowing that many poor creatures who were unable to dig and ashamed to beg expired of want and were often found dead in the sequestrated garrets and cellars to which they had silently returned’. The part of Dublin referred to was the area of Charles Street West behind Ormond Quay, in the parish of St Michan.

At the inaugural meeting of the Society on the 15 March 1790, the founders – Samuel Rossborough, Laurence Toole and nine others – resolved to form a society ‘to be called the Charitable Society for the Relief of Room-Keepers of all Religious Persuasions in the City of Dublin’. For the first three years, the Society confined its activities to the parish of St Michan and gave relief in the form of potatoes, bread, meal, straw, fuel or money as circumstances dictated. However, according to Warburton, Whitelaw and Walsh, ‘the Charity soon attracted public notice and support’ and it expanded its geographic reach.

Our principal founder, Samuel Rossborough is commemorated by a memorial tablet on the east wall of St Michan’s Church, in Church Street. The original memorial was unfortunately damaged in severe weather and became dislodged from the wall, fell to the ground and broke beyond repair – but, conscious of our long and distinguished history, the Society was determined to restore it. The new memorial, which was fashioned by the sculptor and letter-cutter Tom Glendon, was dedicated by Archdeacon Pierpoint in 2014. It is an exquisite piece of work.

Expanding its activities beyond the parish of St Michan in 1793, the Society re-organised itself into four separate divisions under the direction of a central committee – the Barrack and Rotunda Divisions on the north side of town, and the Workhouse and St. Stephen’s Green Divisions on the south side. Committees of trustees were drawn from residents of each area to be responsible for distributing relief at a local level. The divisional monthly meetings were normally held in local public houses –‘respectable taverns’, as the annual report for 1842 put it – and from 1809 to 1841 the central committee would meet in the Royal Exchange, now City Hall. The Society later used rented premises in Dame Street, and in 1855 purchased the building in Palace Street.

The Society attracted regular subscriptions and some substantial donations from affluent benefactors. Another major source of income was charity sermons. By 1823 charity sermons for the benefit of the Society were arranged bi-annually: one in an Anglican church at the end of April, the other in a Catholic church at the beginning of December. This reflected the non-denominational character of the Society. From the outset (as we have already seen), the Society has been non-denominational; it helps people of all creeds and of none.

Continue reading →

‘Trusk’ shutdown of USAID ripples through Ireland, world

UPDATE 4:

Fewer than 300 of more than 10,000 USAID employees worldwide still have jobs as the week comes to a close. The lettering above the headquarters entrance seen below has been removed. Responsible media outlets and fact-checkers have detailed many of the falsehoods spread about the agency, but the lies have spread like a wildfire and the damage is done.

‘Trusk’ has “imperiled millions of lives, thousands of American jobs and billions of dollars of investment in American small businesses and farms while severely undermining our national security and global influence — all while authoritarians and extremists celebrate their luck,” former USAID Administrator Samantha Power wrote in a New York Times op-ed.

This is the final update of this post.

UPDATE 3:

USAID offices on Feb. 3, 2025.

The domestic repercussions of “Trusk’s” decision to shutdown USAID are beginning to emerge. American communities could face devastating economic consequences and job losses as agency disbursements to contractors and suppliers slam to a halt. US farmers appear to be especially vulnerable.

“You’re talking about thousands of people here and abroad, American companies that what they do is implement USAID programs,” Dany Bahar, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, told CNN. “A lot of the money from USAID is helping [foreign] countries grow and develop stronger commercial ties with the US.”

UPDATE 2:

The Irish website Gript.ie has provided some details about the $70,000 “DEI musical” in Ireland citied by the White House as an example of waste at USAID. (The money actually came from the US State Department, not USAID.) “The U.S. The Embassy in Ireland has not yet responded to a request for comment on the funding or confirmed what concert it was spent on,” the website’s Maria Maynes reports. Gript describes itself as “a platform for views which challenge establishment thinking” and concerned about the “headlong rush to the most extreme forms of liberalism.” … USAID has notified its global direct hire workforce that they will be placed on administrative leave effective at the end of this week (Feb. 7, 2025). It is unclear whether or how many employees the agency has in Ireland or Northern Ireland. The Journal.ie reports that Irish aid organizations “have received a flurry of memos from the US State Department since the (USAID) suspension, which have led to confusion and uncertainty about what will happen next.”

St. Patrick’s Day boycott?

Demands for Irish government officials to boycott the annual St. Patrick’s Day visit to America are gathering pace. Trump’s call to “take over” Gaza and transform it into “the Riviera of the Middle East” is a stronger irritant than the USAID shutdown. He made the comment during a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. People Before Profit’s TD Ruth Coppinger described them as “two psychopaths sitting in front of an open fire in the White House.” The war between Israel and Hamas last year sparked similar demands to skip the annual bowl of shamrocks ceremony. What seems more likely to derail the March visit this year is whether Trump imposes tariffs on Europe or other economic penalties on Ireland.

Demonstrators gathered outside the US Treasury on Feb. 4 to protest billionaire Elon Musk gaining unsupervised access to the agency. A similar protest occurred a day earlier outside the shuttered USAID offices. Washington Monument at left.

UPDATE 1:

The Irish government is assessing the impact on some of its international aid programs in Africa which are tied to USAID partnership agreements, the Irish Times reports. (See original post below.) … US Sen. Chis Coons, a Democrat from Delaware and close friend of former President Joe Biden, says dismantling USAID will put Americans in danger. “USAID’s programs, like all our foreign assistance, play a central role in combating extremism, promoting stability and protecting our homeland,” he writes in a Washington Post op-ed. Coons notes that US foreign aid is about 1 percent of the federal budget. … But, the White House has generated click-bait headlines by claiming a $70,000 USAID grant supported a “DEI musical” in Ireland as an example of waste at the agency.

ORIGIONAL POST:

The decision by the US regime of Donald Trump and Elon Musk (“Trusk”) to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will have global impacts, including Ireland.

“USAID and Ireland continue to strengthen our partnership to combat global hunger and support shared international development priorities,” the US agency announced Feb. 6, 2024–a year ago this week. That press release is now inaccessible on its shuttered website. A day-after release by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced a new collaboration between the two countries to improve food support to Zambia. That release is still posted.

Logo of US and Irish aid programs.

“Perhaps where USAID and the Irish state work most in synch is in Africa managing food security and preparing the region for climate change through provisions to small farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa including Ethiopia where the Irish government was accused of backing an American takeover of the country through support of northern rebels,” The Burkean website in Ireland reported Feb. 2. “Whether the Irish presence in these countries can be sustained post-USAID in a world where China and even Russia can provide more beneficial bilateral relationships arguably with less clauses awaits to be seen.”

The Burkean describes itself as an online publication founded and run by university students in Ireland that seeks to promote free speech and fresh ideas. It features this quote from the Dublin-born statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

This is a developing story. As of this posting there is not much coverage in Irish mainstream media about this issue. Most of the attention is focused on Trump’s threatened tariffs. Email subscribers should check markholan.org for updates to this post.

When three American journalists visited Donegal, 1919-1922

At least three American journalists trekked to the Dungloe village in remote northwest County Donegal during Ireland’s dangerous revolutionary period. They came to interview Patrick Gallagher, who had organized a successful cooperative agricultural society. It was a hopeful news story in the middle of Ireland’s war of independence and civil war.

My story about these three journalists–Ruth Russell of the Chicago Daily News; Savel Zimand of Survey Graphic magazine; and Redfern Mason of the San Francisco Examiner–has just been published at The Irish Story website.

Image from November 1921 issue of Survey Graphic.

Georgetown conference explores US-Irish relations

I’m closing the live blog. Thanks for following today. MH

Ted Smyth of the University College Dublin Clinton Institute is closing the conference. He disagrees with the view–expressed more than once today–that Joe Biden was the last Irish-American president. Smyth says the conference will return to Georgetown next year. Videos of the first five conferences can be found here. I’m sure today’s sessions will be added soon.

***

The panel is discussing the challenges of making history relevant to contemporary audiences. The characteristics of Irish (or Irish American) audiences is much different than 20 years ago, Stack noted. “We need to grapple with how we talk to our audience,” she said. “They are coming from a different Ireland. It can’t be all shamrocks and shillelaghs.” Ó Dochartaig said there is a need to expand oral history collections that are project focused and scholarship focused. The Irish who immigrated to the US in the 1980s, for example, will not be around in 20 years.

Ó Dochartaigh says the Troubles raised interest in Ireland beyond the Irish-American diaspora, including academia and business interests. He mention the profound swing from President John F. Kennedy’s indifference to Northern Ireland in 1963, when he visited the Republic, to the engagement of his brother, Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy, in the 1980s and 1990s, and other politicians in solving the crisis in the North. “The level of involvement was extraordinary.”

Stack notes there was no recruitment of Irish Americans to fight in the 1916 Rising–before the US entered the First World War. The Irish mostly wanted money, she said.

Anbinder says the Famine Irish were not the “poorest of the poor,” and their economic success in America happened more rapidly than scholars previously believed. Some of this narrative come from the Irish themselves, who exaggerating how deep a hole they climbed out of to highlight how much they achieved.

Left to right: Prof. Niall Ó Dochartaigh, University of Galway; Dr. Elizabeth Stack, Director of the American Irish Historical Society; and Prof. Tyler Anbinder, The George Washington University. The moderator at right is Prof. Darragh Gannon, Associate Director of Global Irish Studies, Georgetown University.

The last panel is, “Looking Back, Looking Forward: 100 Years of Irish–US Relations.” In 1924 Irish professor Timothy A. Smiddy became the first foreign minister to represent the Irish Free State in the United States. See my post, ‘Special relationship’ or the fading of the green?

***

Scanlon acknowledge the power of Irish America is “changing … evolving over time.” But strong Irish studies and exchange programs help to maintain the connections. “The power of the relationship since Brexit has became really clear,” she said. Fallon suggested some of the dilution is offset by Ireland playing a larger role in an ever-shrinking world. “And Americans without Irish heritage are visiting Ireland in droves, which contributes to the relationship,” he said.

Ireland is working more directly with state and local economic development groups and private companies rather than US officials. There is about $150 billion in direct foreign investment in the USA from Ireland. … Scanlon said she expects tension over Trump’s effort to make big tech and big pharma companies with operations in Ireland return to the USA. That’s because several of the billionaires who have his ear have interests in Ireland. She did not name anyone.

Both members of Congress agree that Ireland will remain neutral for the short and medium term, as indicated by polling in Ireland. Fallon noted Finland and Ireland have about the same population, 5.5 million. But the former is part of NATO and can ready 800,000 troops. Ireland can’t reach its goal of 11,500.

Scanlon defends post-World War II order that Trump administration appears to be turning from. “It’s much better for our country and for Ireland to protect global security and democracy.” Fallon notes it’s a much different world from 1946, not just US and communist. “Now we live in a very asymmetrical world.” He says NATO will be strengthened if all the members pay their agreed 2 percent of GDP.

Prof. Scott Lucas, University College Dublin Clinton Institute, seated at left, introduces Scanlon, left, and Fallon on video conference.

We’re waiting on the next panel: “The View from Capitol Hill: What Next for the Transatlantic Political Relationship?” with U.S. Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA 5th) and Pat Fallon (R-TX 4th).

***

Responding to an audience question, Richardson agreed there is a diminishment of cultural affinity between the US and Ireland. It is not as strong as it was through the twentieth century, especially when so much attention focused on bringing peace to Northern Ireland. “People are well-disposed to Ireland, but not enough to sacrifice or jeopardize their own interests,” she said. “The culture affinity is pretty soft. Ireland will not be able to rely on it in the future like it has in the past.”

Richardson, a Waterford native, said she has an Irish worldview despite not living in the country since completing her undergraduate degree at Trinity College Dublin in 1980. “Catholicism bred internationalism,” she said. “You learn about the world. The nuns taught a notion of equality with others, including the starving children in Africa.” But she has no desire to return to Ireland.

Richardson has praised Ireland from welcoming Ukrainian refugees, as compared to the backlash in the United Kingdom.

On Irish sympathy for the Palestinians, and resulting trouble with Israel. “Ireland as a small victim of colonialism tends to identify with other victims of colonialism,” Richardson said. “Ireland could have a values-based foreign policy because it was a small, poor country. It could afford to take principled positions because it didn’t have to make trade offs. Ireland hasn’t had to pay a price for these positions.” That is likely to change. “I expect the Trump administration to be much less sympathetic to Ireland.”

Ireland will feel more pressure, from the US and from Europe, to shift from its historic neutral stance. “Ireland leaves itself open to criticism of being a free rider,” Richardson said. This especially true when Ireland is running budget surpluses.

“From Trump onward, American presidents will be much less interested in Ireland.” –Dame Louise Richardson, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, below left.

Dame Louise Richardson, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, at left, with moderator Catherine Lucey of The Wall Street Journal.

Byrne Nason: EU defense spending is up 30 percent since Ukraine was invaded by Russia, and 63 percent of that money is spent in the US. “Ireland believes in the international legal order,” the Irish ambassador said. She emphasized that Ireland is “non-aligned but not neutral,” that an Irish general now chairs the EU military. “We are reviewing their our own security initiatives,” she said. The Irish economic zone includes the surrounding seas and is seven times larger than the island. That maritime profile includes many important transatlantic cables.

Byrne Nason: Trump is a businessman, and the US-EU relationship is big business. She reminds that EU is 27 nations. “Could you imagine 27 US states coming together every day and reaching agreement on sensitive issues? But we (EU) are on the job every day.”

Opening panel (below) is assessing USA-European relations. … Stuart Holliday says a certain degree of panic in Europe is perhaps overstated. “The more Europe strengthens itself the better to have an equal relationship with the United States,” he said. “You can work with this president (Trump) is you can work personally and move quickly.” Also says transatlantic relationships should be expanded to include new players.

Transatlantic Relations at a Crossroads panel, left to right: Stuart Holliday, Director of the Meridian International Center and former Ambassador for Special Political Affairs of the United States to the UN; Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States; and Francisco António Duarte Lopes, Ambassador of Portugal to the United States. Niamh King, Director of Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum, the panel moderator, at right.

***

Prof. Cóilín Parsons, director of Global Irish Studies and associate professor at Georgetown, will give opening remarks at noon Eastern.

***

I will be live blogging today (Jan. 29) from Georgetown University’s sixth annual “Bridging the Atlantic” conference. Email subscribers should visit my website for updates after noon Eastern.

Seating has opened inside the Mortara Center For International Studies.

BTA “seeks to spotlight issues of mutual concern” to the USA, Ireland, and the European Union, including transatlantic trade and the ongoing challenges of peace-building in Northern Ireland, according to the conference agenda. The new Trump administration in Washington and coalition government in Dublin are likely to receive plenty of attention.

The conference is presented by Georgetown’s Global Irish Studies Initiative and BMW Center for German and European Studies, in association with the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin, Queen’s University Belfast, and the Embassy of Ireland.

Mark Holan's Irish American Blog

Exploring news & history since 2012.

Author Archives: Mark Holan

About Mark Holan

Four great stories about American journalists in Ireland

Remembering COVID’s deadly impact on St. Patrick’s Day; Cardinal McElroy praises Irish immigrants

3rd annual Washington Forum on Northern Ireland

Martin survives ‘Trump show’ in early St. Patrick’s Day events

When the Irish ‘exposed’ a New York Herald reporter

Could Maine potatoes have relieved Irish hunger in 1925?

Guest post: ‘Serving the poor of Dublin since 1790’

‘Trusk’ shutdown of USAID ripples through Ireland, world

When three American journalists visited Donegal, 1919-1922

Georgetown conference explores US-Irish relations

About Mark Holan

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