Category Archives: Irish America

Detailing the US deaths of Donegal’s ‘Tunnel Tigers’

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In April I visited the Donegal Tunnel Tigers Memorial on the grounds of St. Crona’s Church in Dungloe, County Donegal. The statue and information panels honor nearly six dozen emigrants from the county who died in overseas in tunnel and mine accidents. The list includes seven men who were killed in the United States, a small subset of the Irishmen who died below the American landscape in the 19th and 20th centuries.

A few details about these seven workers from US newspapers and other sources are found below the monument photo. They are listed in chronological order with each man’s age and place of birth and death.

The monument was dedicated in 2019.

James O’Donnell, 29, B: Crolly, D: Butte, Montana

Killed with eight other miners on November 3, 1891. The cage in the Anaconda mine shaft was overloaded with 18 to 20 men.[1]“Hurled To Eternity”, Butte (Mont.) Daily Post, November 4, 1891.

Hugh Carney, 42, Glebe, B: Mountcharles, D: Butte

Was dislodged from the cage being lowered into the shaft at the Diamond mine on January 6, 1909. Seven other miners were in the cage when the door, said to be bolted, was torn off. Another man sustained right hand and arm injuries. The accident occurred about the 400 level of the 1,600-foot shaft.[2]“Falling Of Gate Remains Mystery”, The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, January 9, 1909.

Philip Boyle, 34, B: Calhame, Annagry, D: Butte

Lost his footing on a wall plate  of the Modoc mine shaft and plunged 50 feet to the sump on December 22, 1912. He had arrived from Ireland in October and only begun to work at the silver and copper mine a week earlier. He left a wife and newborn son that he had not yet seen in Donegal. “A cablegram conveying the sad news to the young mother was sent last night, bringing sorrow at the happy Christmastide.”[3]“Killed Before He Could See Newborn Babe”, The Butte (Mont.) Miner, December 23, 1912, and “Misses His Footing, Plunges To Death”  The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, December 23, 1912.

  • Neil Doherty, 26, B: Mullaghderg, D: Butte 

Shortly before midnight June 8, 1917, fire broke out more than 2,000 feet below ground in the North Butte Mining Company’s Granite Mountain/Speculator shaft. A total of 164 (some accounts say 168) miners died as flames, smoke, and poisonous gas spread through the labyrinth of underground tunnels.[4]Michael Punke, Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917, [New York: Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group), 2007] Contemporary newspaper accounts list Doherty’s age as 46.

  • John J. McGuinness, 39, B: Molville, D: Butte

Also died in the June 1917 Speculator fire. In 2000, Stewart Norris of Molville visited Butte and located the weather-beaten wooden marker over the McGuinness grave at the Holy Cross Cemetery. Norris made arrangements for a stone marker, according to a newspaper report. The contemporary story says McGuinness was 49.[5]“Irish visitor finds grave of friend’s grandfather, who died in Speculator fire” The Montana Standard (Butte), November 12, 2000.

Up to one quarter of Butte’s residents were from Ireland at the turn of the 20th century. They came from Mayo, Cork, and Kerry in addition to Donegal. Irish leader Eamon de Valera visited the town in 1919.

Neil Doherty and John J. McGuinness were listed among the “Identified Mine Dead.”

Cornelius Boyle, 28, B: Dungloe, D: New York City

On Friday, April 13, 1928, he was struck by a dislodged boulder while working on a subway tunnel under the East River between 53rd Street, Manhattan, and Long Island City, Queens.[6]“Bayonne Man Crushed To Death” Bayonne (NJ) Evening News, April 14, 1928.

Niece McCole, 32, B: Keadue, Burtonport, D: New York

The memorial panel says he was killed in 1932 in New York, though it is unclear if this was the city or state. I could not find coverage of this fatality in US and Irish newspaper databases. A coal miner named Niece McCole is mentioned in a 1906 story about Pennsylvania mine owners blocking unionized labor from their properties.[7]“Whistles Will Blow But No Union Men Will Respond To The Summons”, Buffalo (NY) Courier, April 2, 1906.

References

References
↑1 “Hurled To Eternity”, Butte (Mont.) Daily Post, November 4, 1891.
↑2 “Falling Of Gate Remains Mystery”, The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, January 9, 1909.
↑3 “Killed Before He Could See Newborn Babe”, The Butte (Mont.) Miner, December 23, 1912, and “Misses His Footing, Plunges To Death”  The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, December 23, 1912.
↑4 Michael Punke, Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917, [New York: Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group), 2007]
↑5 “Irish visitor finds grave of friend’s grandfather, who died in Speculator fire” The Montana Standard (Butte), November 12, 2000.
↑6 “Bayonne Man Crushed To Death” Bayonne (NJ) Evening News, April 14, 1928.
↑7 “Whistles Will Blow But No Union Men Will Respond To The Summons”, Buffalo (NY) Courier, April 2, 1906.

The ‘Irish Literary Supplement’ says slán

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This summer, Robert G. Lowery published the final issue of the Irish Literary Supplement, a biannual journal that provided readers approximately 2,000 reviews since 1982.

“I’m grateful to all those reviewers and editors who were with me from the start, and those who joined the journey at stops along the way,” the editor and publisher wrote on the American Conference of Irish Studies (ACIS) Facebook page.

Lowery’s message generated more than three dozen supportive comments and nearly 100 positive emoji reactions as of the date this story was published.

“You have rendered the world of Irish Studies, indeed anyone interested in this country, its diaspora and its rich cultural history, a dedicated and generous service,” wrote Piaras Mac Éinrí, lecturer in Migration Studies and Geography at University College Cork.

Lowery, 84, has been a member of ACIS since 1975. He is the author of six books on Irish dramatist Sean O’Casey (1880-1964). In the 1970s, Lowery was founder and editor of the journal The Sean O’Casey Review. Simultaneously, he was editor of the ACIS Newsletter for 10 years and the Irish Arts Center (New York City) magazine Ais-Eiri for five years. He organized numerous conferences and centenary celebrations about Casey, and in 1986 delivered his extensive archive of O’Casey memorabilia to the Boston College Library.

The final issue of the ILS.

For most of its run the ILS was a cooperative venture between Lowery, ACIS, which provided mailing labels of its membership, and the Irish Studies program at Boston College, which provided sponsorship. Circulation fluctuated depending on ACIS membership, while at peak about 400 libraries subscribed to the journal.

“Before ILS, which most people can’t remember, there were very few outlets for book reviews on Irish subjects,” Lowery wrote in reply to my outreach. “The Times Literary Supplement would have one issue per year where Irish books filled the pages. And of course, the Irish newspapers carried book reviews, but this was before the internet and the only way to get Irish papers was at a few newsstands in New York City, Boston, and maybe Washington, D.C.

Before the internet … Today book publishers routinely bypass independent reviewers to promote their titles through web pages, email lists, and social media feeds. It seems to me that ILS readers and the Irish Studies scholars who wrote the reviews are shortchanged by these newer marketing strategies.

“Bob listened to many of us try out our work, which meant that he also had a sense of who might be able to review works that crossed his desk,” Timothy G. McMahon, Ph.D., associate professor of Modern Irish and British Empire History at Marquette University, Milwaukee, and a past ACIS president, wrote in an email. “A lot of us, therefore, got experience reviewing in the pages of the ILS, including learning how to deal with a tough-minded editor who cast a critical eye over the text.”

The final issue of ILS featured 21 reviews of books from 13 U.S., U.K., and Irish publishers, with a display advertisement from Wake Forest University Press, a supporter of the journal for decades. “I think it’s a strong ending,” Lowery wrote.

So what’s next?

Is there a future for the ILS?

Lowery, who owns the title through a Long Island, N.Y., entity called Irish Studies, said he hopes “an enterprising scholar” will pick up where has left off.

“The key to keeping such a publication going is to get the endorsement of ACIS,” he continued. “If you’re going digital, you can simply post the paper on the ACIS Facebook site; but I don’t know how you will fund it. It is too expensive to print, and print is somewhat passe anyway. When I started in 1982, first class postage for a 20-page paper to Ireland and England was 60 cents. Today, it’s $6.00. There is no 2nd or 3rd class postage.”

The endeavor also requires “a good strong Irish editor,” Lowery added. “I was lucky to have them.”

I reached out to ACIS and Boston College. I welcome members of the Irish Studies community to provide their thoughts about continuing the ILS in some format.

Will the Trumpistorians alter Irish American history?

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UPDATE:

Read or listen to this Democracy Now! interview with Annette Gordon-Reed, a Harvard history professor and president of the Organization of American Historians.

ORIGINAL POST:

The Trump administration announced August 12 that it would begin a comprehensive review of current and planned exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution, which describes itself as “the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex.” The administration said that it will examine museum display text and website and social media content “to assess tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals.”

This is part of a broader effort by US President Donald Trump to stamp his gilded, white-washed view of American history on the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026, and beyond. Earlier this year the Smithsonian removed, then revised, references to Trump’s two impeachments. Historians are alarmed.

Of course, Ireland and the Irish loom large in American history. Several signatories of the Declaration of Independence were born in Ireland or had Irish roots. Mass Irish immigration in the mid-nineteenth century provided soldiers for the US Civil War and labor for American commerce. Ireland’s struggles for freedom and equality have influenced American politics and culture throughout the twentieth century; from helping to scuttle the League of Nations in 1919 to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, with many St. Patrick’s Day parades in between.

The Smithsonian holds numerous objects and artifacts related to Irish American history. Some have been displayed in public, others featured in institution publications and platforms.

The all-time most viewed post on this site was inspired in 2017 by a display about immigration at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The “Irish radicalism” addressed in the 1889 political cartoon seen below has been widely discussed by other online platforms, which probably has something to do with the digital traffic. I am not sure if the display I viewed eight years ago is still at the museum, and if so, whether it will survive the Trump scrub.

“Irish radicals were seen as too unruly to mix in,” the Smithsonian said in 2017.

Another item from the Smithsonian’s website details an 1882 banner honoring Irish American boxer John L. Sullivan. The April 2018 post notes the history of sports figures who wade into politics, including contemporary athletes who refused “to visit the Obama and Trump White Houses.” How will the Trumpistorians deal with this description:

“The Irish were never held as slaves in America, but into the late 1800s Irish Americans continued to battle long-standing prejudices that led many people to think of them as inferior to other European Americans. British and American writers blamed Irish people themselves rather than imperialism and bigotry for Irish poverty. They cited Irish allegiance to the Catholic Church, unsupported applications of Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the pseudoscience of phrenology—which wrongly claimed a link between people’s intellectual potential and the outline of their heads—to claim that Irish people were less independent and less intelligent than “Anglo-Teutonic” people from Northern Europe. Often, as the illustrations below demonstrate, the alleged differences were described in racial terms, with the Irish either not considered white or considered less human than other whites.”

The post goes on to explore Sullivan’s “empathy for the South in the wake of the Civil War and his desire to see the South and North reconciled in a nation that valued white supremacy.” Will the Trumpistorians remove the references to slavery and phrenology but keep the part about white supremacy?

Here’s a March 2015 post that details “four objects that reveal facets of the Irish American experience.” The opening section about early twentieth century St. Patrick’s Day postcards says that many were based on “unflattering stereotypes of the Irish as drinkers, fighters, or simple country bumpkins.” It says that Irish Americans used “protests, boycotts, and calls for the police to confiscate the ‘indecent literature’” as an example of how “both individuals and groups often use whatever power and resources they have at their disposal to push back.”

Was this “cancel culture?” Will the Trumpistorians allow content that speaks about protesting commercial interests, let alone an unpopular government?

These are just three examples. I imagine content that names Trump, such as the second item in this post (Obama and Trump in the same sentence, oh my!), will receive the most immediate attention. Trump seems to have a conflicted relationship with Ireland. He owns a golf course in Clare and has an affinity for Conor McGregor (both convicted in civil courts of sexual misconduct). But Trump has targeted Ireland’s tax schemes and High Tech and Big Pharma infrastructure in his overhaul of global trade, and he doesn’t care for its support of the Palestinians.

I’ll be watching this story over the coming year. I invite readers to send other examples from the Smithsonian or other institutions that could face Trump’s revisionism on Irish issues. And, of course, you are very welcome to visit the Smithsonian museums here in the city of Washington, D.C., now occupied by Trump’s troops.

Brayden on American tourists in Ireland, 1925

William Henry Brayden made several references to the Irish tourism industry in his summer 1925 newspaper series, later consolidated into a small book.[1]See my Brayden series introduction. German U-boats no longer threatened ocean travel. The smoke of more than a decade of world war and revolutionary gunfire and bombings had cleared to reveal Ireland’s verdant beauty and hospitality. Americans and other foreigners once again began to arrive.

Wm. Brayden

“It is now the settled policy of the Free State to attract visitors to holidays in Ireland,” Brayden declared in the opening installment of his 16-part series for the Chicago Daily News.[2]”Ireland No Longer Distressful Country”, Chicago Daily News, June 16, 1925; and William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing … Continue reading He continued:

“It is thought that the time has at last come when Ireland, besides its natural scenic beauties and facilities for sport, has much that is attractive and hopeful to exhibit. Any visitor will speedily recognize a change in the outlook of the people. Ireland is no longer a distressful country. People are beginning to think of the future over which they have some power of control rather than of the past where effort was so long checked because it seemed hopeless.”

Brayden said visitors would recognize the separation of the 26-county Irish Free State from Great Britain “by the examination of his baggage at the customs. He will note the promptitude and civility of the new officials.”

But Brayden also reported a significant problem with the new system “proved embarrassing to some visitors.” Before boarding eastbound ocean steamers, American travelers were required to buy a $10 visa from the new Irish Free State passport office in New York City. Great Britain offered a visa without charge. Travelers who disembarked in England or Northern Ireland could travel into the Free State without the Irish visa. But those who attempted to land in the Free State without the Irish visa were stopped.

This image is from Wallace Nutting’s 1925 photobook ‘Ireland Beautiful.’ Read my ‘History Ireland’ story, linked below, to learn how this American book helped to boost Irish tourism.

“All this passport business is still in an inchoate and unsatisfactory state,” Brayden reported. “Tourist associations complain of it as a hinderance to the movement for encouraging visitors to Ireland.”[3]“Ireland Now Deals With Other Nations”, Chicago Daily News, July 2, 1920, and Brayden, A survey, 23.

The correspondent observed many Americans in Cork city. “They were to be seen everywhere in the streets and in the stores.” A few were disappointed there were no “American bars” to offer mixed cocktails and “had to be content with the unmixed native product.”[4]“Cork Is Recovering From Its War Wounds”, Chicago Daily News, July 11, 1920; and Brayden, A survey, 33. Remember, prohibition had been US law for five years by 1925. Such measures were being discussed on the island of Ireland–more in the north than the south, Brayden reported–but did not pass. Some liquor laws were later tightened, such as sales on Good Friday and Christmas Day.

My article in the July/August issue of History Ireland magazine, Ireland Beautiful–How A 1925 American Photobook Boosted Irish Tourism, explores more about 1925 American tourism in Ireland. American who visit Ireland this summer are encouraged to share your impressions for a future post. Contact me through the blog.

References

References
↑1 See my Brayden series introduction.
↑2 ”Ireland No Longer Distressful Country”, Chicago Daily News, June 16, 1925; and William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], 4.
↑3 “Ireland Now Deals With Other Nations”, Chicago Daily News, July 2, 1920, and Brayden, A survey, 23.
↑4 “Cork Is Recovering From Its War Wounds”, Chicago Daily News, July 11, 1920; and Brayden, A survey, 33.

Our midsummer’s blogiversary break

This post marks my 13th blogiversary. Thanks to email subscribers as well as regular and occasional visitors. I’m taking off most of July. … Below are four freelance pieces about American journalists in Ireland, all published this year. Also linked below is my ongoing exploration of William Brayden’s 1925 series on partitioned Ireland for the Chicago Daily News. Enjoy. MH

Ireland Beautiful–How A 1925 American Photobook Boosted Irish Tourism
History Ireland (Dublin)

The US Press and the American Commission on Irish Independence, 1919
New Hibernia Review

When three American journalists visited ‘Paddy the Cope’ in Dungloe, 1919-1922
The Irish Story (Dublin)

Richard Lee Strout: A Young American Reporter In Revolutionary Ireland
American Journalism

Revisiting William Brayden’s 1925 ‘survey’ of Ireland
From the blog. More posts coming later this year.

A 1920s map of partitioned Ireland from a US newspaper. Note that Queenstown has not be changed to Cobh, Kings county has not be changed to Offaly.

Remembering CUA library donor John K. Mullen of Galway

John Kernan Mullen of Ballinasloe, County Galway, helped to fund the Catholic University of America (CUA) library that bears his name. The cornerstone was laid April 25, 1925, on the Washington, D.C., campus.

Mullen emigrated to America in 1847, when he was nine. “He began working in a flour mill in Oriskany Falls, N.Y.,” according to a CUA profile. “At 20, Mullen went West, leasing a flour mill in Denver, Colo., and soon after buying several more mills. By 1911 he had built the first grain elevator in the state, established the Colorado Milling and Elevator Company, and operated 91 elevators, warehouses and mills in Colorado, Kansas, Utah and Oregon.”

He became a millionaire.

In 1924, Mullen pledged $500,000 to CUA to build a library, which opened as the John K. Mullen of Denver Memorial Library in September 1928. Since then the library has been open to the public. My work has benefited from access to the Mullen Library and CUA’s Special Collections, which are held in a different building. See the library’s online centenary exhibition.

There is no doubt of Mullen’s business success and generous philanthropy, especially to the Catholic church. He might have been motivated by having escaped the Great Famine.

His political views about Ireland’s struggle for independence are more of a mystery. He surely knew that Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, CUA’s rector from 1909 to 1928, had been an ardent Irish nationalist and national vice president of the Friends of Irish Freedom during the country’s revolutionary years. Exiled Fenian John Devoy attended the 1925 cornerstone ceremony. Coverage of the event in his Gaelic American newspaper mentioned only Mullen’s financial gift.[1]”Cardinal Lays Cornerstone Of Library, Gaelic American, May 2, 1925.

Mullen died in August 1929 in Denver. US Catholic newspapers and secular press obituaries also were silent as to Mullen’s views about his homeland. The digital Irish Newspaper Archive contains no coverage of his death or funding the library.

Bust of John K. Mullen on the main stairway landing between the library’s lobby and second floor.

This plaque is located inside the library’s front door.

References

References
↑1 ”Cardinal Lays Cornerstone Of Library, Gaelic American, May 2, 1925.

Zoom presentation on Michael J. O’Brien

This event is concluded. I will make the recording available at a later date. MH

As historiographer of the American Irish Historical Society, County Cork-born Michael J. O’Brien focused on Irish contributions to colonial America. In 1919, as the Irish War of Independence heated up, he published A Hidden Phase of American History: Ireland’s Part in America’s Struggle for Liberty. The book was deployed to help make the case for why America should support Ireland’s struggle for liberty. When US Senator John Sharp Williams, a Mississippi Democrat, attacked the Irish in a widely reported speech, O’Brien was drafted to issue the reply.

My zoom presentation, “Michael J. O’Brien: Defending Ireland’s Record in America,” begins at 6 tonight, USA Eastern time. Thanks to the Irish American Heritage Museum, Albany, N.Y., which has stepped up to save this presentation after a new round of turmoil at AIHS. More about that in a future post.

Four great stories about American journalists in Ireland

Below are four recent stories about American journalists in Ireland. The six correspondents highlighted in these pieces visited the country between 1919 and 1925. Their work drew attention on both sides of the Atlantic. My research in this subject area continues. Suggestions and comments are welcome. MH  

Richard Lee Strout: A Young American Reporter In Revolutionary Ireland After spending a year interning at London newspapers, Strout stopped in Ireland on his way back to America. He arrived in Dublin a day before Bloody Sunday, 1920. Published in American Journalism, the peer-reviewed quarterly of the American Journalism Historians Association.

When three American journalists visited ‘Paddy the Cope’ in Dungloe, 1919-1922: Correspondents from the Chicago Tribune, Survey Graphic magazine (New York), and the San Francisco Examiner traveled to the northwest corner of County Donegal to write about Patrick Gallagher, a cooperative leader. Published in The Irish Story (Dublin).

When the Irish ‘exposed’ a New York Herald reporter In June 1919 the Irish American press praised Truman H. Talley for publicizing a report that criticized the British administration of Ireland. A few months later, the same papers called him a British propagandist.

Could Maine potatoes have relieved Irish hunger in 1925? Milton Bronner of the Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicated a three-part series of stories and photos about privation and poverty in the rural west of Ireland.

Visit my American Reporting of Irish Independence page.

On a lonely road in Connemara, south of Westport, 2019.

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

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

The live blog is closed. Thanks to those who checked in during the day. MH

Northern Ireland has come a long way in the 27 years since the Good Friday Agreement. The region is uniquely positioned economically. But there is still work to do, especially regarding the legacy of the Troubles.

UPDATE 3:

Northern Ireland and legacy investigations of the Troubles are not the priority for the parliament in London, Boutcher said. He also said that victims’ families have never been treated with dignity and respect. Also, their memories are better than most police and government officials believe.

Not everything in Northern Ireland was collusion, but many cases were mishandled. Boutcher said other crime and terrorism cases are handled publicly, while still protecting national security, but not the Troubles cases. “Let’s just let people know what happened in their individual cases,” he said.

PSNI is 32 percent Catholic nationalist. Boutcher wants it to get to 50 percent. There are recruitment problems with working class unionist Protestants too. Also need better representation among minority immigrant communities.

***

Jon Boutcher is talking about the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, including how government and police organizations failed to gave victims’ families full information. This was done, he said, because officials worried about where the disclosure might lead, rather than what was best for the families.

Kenova website on investigations of Northern Ireland legacy crimes. Boutcher lead the effort before taking his current position.

Working for the Royal Ulster Constabulary was the most dangerous police agency in the world during the Troubles, Boutcher said.  But the police force and British state used too much secrecy and too often operated above or outside the law. “This does not had the moral high ground to the terrorists,” he said.

Finding the truth for this families is the unwritten chapter of the Good Friday Agreement.

Chief Constable Jon Boutcher of the Police Service of Northern Ireland is being interviewed by American University professor Carolyn Gallaher.

 

UPDATE 2:

Benn is now being interviewed by Associate Director of Global Irish Studies Darragh Gannon. Benn opposed Brexit. He notes that trade implications were not fully considered, or the political consequences.

The most important contribution of the Northern Ireland Executive is “to stay in place,” Benn said. “Investors want stability. They don’t want a place where the government disappears every so often.”

Benn has ruled out a near-term referendum on the reunification of Ireland. His decision, he said, is based on the plain language of the Good Friday Agreement that the Northern secretary “shall” call border poll if it appears the majority of people would support reunification. “I have seen no evidence that in Northern Ireland a majority of people would vote for a united Ireland,” he said. “It is in the distance. Only time and circumstances will tell how long.”

***

Hilary Benn, member of the British Parliament and secretary of state for Northern Ireland is addressing the forum. He notes that changes of government in Washington, London, and Dublin over the past year.

Hilary Benn

In 27 years since the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland has undergone tremendous changes. “Courage and compromise is what ultimately forged the agreement,” he said.

The GFA remains a model for people all over the world, though power sharing is very difficult. There has been no executive for about a third of time since 1998. But, he adds, “Northern Ireland has stability.”

Labor government in London committed to investment throughout the UK. “There is so much potential in Northern Ireland. It is wonderful to see the confidence of US investment.”

Northern Ireland leads in US foreign direct investment in cyber security, Benn said. He also said the shipbuilding will return to the Harland & Wolff docks in Belfast.

Relationship with Irish government is being reset.

“The unilateral approach to the Legacy Act was wrong,” Benn said. The Labor government not only is working to repeal and replace it, but also to end the ongoing scourge of paramilitarism.

UPDATE 1:

Little Pengelly is discussing the complexities of trade and Trump tariffs could impact Northern Ireland after Brexit. Imports are more impacted than exports. “We really want to grow and supercharge our economy. Happy, thriving people do not want to change their government.”

***

Calling herself a proud unionist, Little Pengelly said a border poll on Irish reunification is “not a destination, not an inevitability. … We want more people to be content with Northern Ireland under the current constitutional arrangement.”

“I don’t think it is useful to overly focus on that issue,” she said.

Little Pengelly said she worries that a poll would divide the region again. “A lot of people in Northern Ireland just want to get on with life. (If there is a referendum” everything gets filtered though you need to pick one side of the other.”

She cited the “toxic nature” of the Brexit vote.

***

Hudson-Dean and Little Pengelly agreed on the need for US-NI cooperation on security issues, including critical undersea cables. … The July 13-20 British Open at the Royal Portrush Golf Club in County Antrim is an example of business and tourism cooperation.

The Trump administration is still considering whether—and who—to appoint as special envoy to North Ireland, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Sharon Hudson-Dean has said. The position was held by Joe Kennedy III in the Biden administration.

***

Deputy First Minister Emma Little Pengelly of the Northern Ireland Executive has joked she asked Donald Trump to rename the Irish Sea the Northern Irish Sea. “Stand by for an announcement,” she winked.

Left to right: Deputy First Minister Emma Little Pengelly of the Northern Ireland Executive, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Sharon Hudson-Dean, and American University professor Kimberly Cowell-Meyers, moderator.

ORIGINAL POST:

The conference has three main presentations:

  • “Sustaining Peace in Northern Ireland: Governance, Diplomacy, and Transatlantic Perspectives”: A conversation with deputy First Minister Emma Little Pengelly, of the Northern Ireland Executive, and US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Sharon Hudson-Dean.
  • Address by Hilary Benn, MP, secretary of state for Northern Ireland.
  • “Building and Maintaining Confidence in Policing in Northern Ireland”: A conversation between Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, QPM, Police Service of Northern Ireland, Prof. Duncan Morrow, Ulster University, and Prof. Carolyn Gallaher, American University.

The Washington Forum on Northern Ireland is presented by Georgetown University’s Global Irish Studies Initiative; the BMW Center for German and European Studies; the Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security; the School of Foreign Service; the American University School of Public Affairs; the School of International Service; the Transatlantic Policy Center; Ulster University; the Washington Ireland Program; and the John and Pat Hume Foundation. The forum is supported by the Northern Ireland Bureau, the Northern Ireland Office, and the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland.