Category Archives: Politics

Zoom presentation on Michael J. O’Brien coming April 21

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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.

Register here for my April 21 zoom presentation, “Michael J. O’Brien: Defending Ireland’s Record in America.” The talk begins at 6 pm US Eastern time. Hope to see you online.

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

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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.

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

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(This post will be updated through March 14. MH)

UPDATE 4:

Trump’s Doonbeg course in Clare. July 2016.

Trump’s golf course at Doonbeg, County Clare, has been vandalized. Greens were dug up and Palestinian flags were planted in the ground. The attack followed his Oval Office meeting with Martin. Last week pro-Palestinian graffiti sprayed “Gaza Is Not For Sale” on a building at Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland.

Meanwhile, the Irish Times details the “problematic planning history” at the west of Ireland property. Naturally, it is not as simple as Trump rambled on about in the Oval Office.

UPDATE 3:

Media reports from the US, Ireland, and United Kingdom generally agree that Martin and Ireland did as well as could be expected in the day-long dance with the mercurial Trump. Some website headline writers seem intent on conveying more peril and tension than I think existed. Unsurprisingly, the best news round up comes from veteran correspondent Shawn Pogatchnik of Politico.eu, an American who has spent 35 years covering Ireland and Northern Ireland. Or watch the video of the Oval Office meeting:

 

I’ll top off this post with more opinion pieces as they emerge over the next few days.

UPDATE 2:

Martin appears to be surviving the Washington whirlwind. He was not helped by today’s European Union announcement of reciprocal tariffs on the US. Trump has fumed all day about the EU. RTÉ has quoted Martin as describing the “very positive engagement” of the day and said that Trump was “quite complimentary” of Ireland’s economic management.

Martin missed the DC visit in 2021 and in 2022 due to COVID. The pandemic erupted at St. Patrick’s Day in 2020 when Leo Varadkar was taoiseach. He addressed the Irish nation nation from Washington before heading back to Dublin.

UPDATE 1:

A luncheon with US congressional leaders and the annual gifting of a bowl of shamrocks will occur later today.

Trump dominated the Oval Office meeting. (Hardly a surprise.) “I think the Irish love Trump,” Trump says. “We don’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland but we want fairness.”

Martin has arrived at the White House. Trump is wearing a red tie, not the traditional green. Read into that what you will.

ORIGINAL POST:

Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheál Martin has began making the rounds in Washington. This year’s bilateral meetings are so highly anticipated that it only makes sense they would occur five days before St. Patrick’s Day. Martin is the first foreign leader to visit the White House since US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance ambushed Ukrainian’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Feb. 28.

The Irish leader will need to navigate a minefield that includes trade and tariffs, Ukraine, and Gaza. In addition, the Burke family of County Mayo, activist evangelical Christians with a long history of protest against LGBTQ rights in Ireland, were reportedly flying to DC, which could signal a possible made-for-television confrontation.

Martin has survived a breakfast meeting at Vance’s official residence and will be headed to the Oval Office later in the day. According to a transcript published by the Irish Times, Martin told Vance:

“Last year we marked 100 years of Irish-US diplomatic relations. Together we have built deep and enduring political, cultural and economic bonds, greatly enriching our two nations in the process.”[1]See my post, ‘Special relationship’ or the fading of the green?

“Nowhere is the strength of the US-Irish relationship more in evidence than in our peace process. Forty-four years ago, President Reagan called for a “just and peaceful solution” to the conflict that had for so long devastated lives on our island.[2]See my post, Remembering Jimmy Carter’s words on Northern Ireland Politicians from both sides of the aisle rose to the occasion. The lasting peace we enjoy on our island today is a signature achievement of US foreign policy.”

Sinn Féin has boycotted the annual festivities for the first time. The opposition party contends that Trump’s talk of transforming Gaza into a “riviera” amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Martin’s US swing began with a stop at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.

References

‘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.

Remembering Jimmy Carter’s words on Northern Ireland

Happy New Year. This first post of 2025 was going to focus on how Donald Trump’s return to the White House later this month threatens the Irish economy. The risk comes from whether Trump keeps his promises to cut corporate taxes and impose tariffs, either of which could incentivize US tech and pharmaceutical multinationals in Ireland to return production, jobs, and future investment to America. This could be a big blow to the incoming Irish government, which, like Trump’s administration, is still in formation.

Jimmy Carter discusses his cancer prognosis at the Carter Center, 2015. The Carter Center/M. Schwarz

But the Dec. 29, 2024, death of former US President Jimmy Carter, 100, deserves attention. Carter “had no Irish roots and never visited Ireland before or during his presidency,” Seán Donlon, Irish ambassador to the United States during the Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations, wrote in the Irish Times. “Nevertheless, his intervention in Irish matters in 1977 was hugely significant and opened the door for the constructive involvement of subsequent presidents in working for peace and stability on the island of Ireland.”

Carter broke the mold of US deference to the UK on Northern Ireland as a domestic matter. He incurred opposition not only from London, but also from Foggy Bottom, headquarters of the US State Department. Even John F. Kennedy, famously the first Irish American Catholic president, toed this line, established at the time of partition by David Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson.

Former Irish diplomat to Washington Ted Smyth told the Times there were two key factors at play in 1977: Carter’s natural inclination to see the North as a human rights issue, and the relationships that SDLP leader John Hume forged with US House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill and US Sen. Ted Kennedy, the late president’s brother. These two Irish Americans leveraged their roles in helping Carter achieve his legislative goals in Congress to push him into taking a position on Northern Ireland after nearly a decade of the Troubles.

Carter’s statement emerged on Aug. 30, 1977. In part, it said:

The United States wholeheartedly supports peaceful means for finding a just solution that involves both parts of the community of Northern Ireland and protects human rights and guarantees freedom from discrimination – a solution that the people in Northern Ireland, as well as the governments of Great Britain and Ireland can support. …  In the event of such a settlement, the U.S. Government would be prepared to join with others to see how additional job creating investment could be encouraged, to the benefit of all the people of Northern Ireland. (FULL STATEMENT)

While insisting the US would maintain its policy of “impartiality” on Northern Ireland, the statement opened the door to future involvement by saying the people there “should know that they have our complete support in their quest for a peaceful and just society.” The statement meant the Irish government for the first time was considered an equal partner with the UK. It promised economic aid if there was a solution.

Partial clip of an Associated Press story from page 6 of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 31, 1977.

It took another 21 years of diplomacy by three more American presidents (Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton) and numerous leaders on both sides of the Irish Sea to reach the Good Friday Agreement. The promised US economic aid “has been, and is being, delivered,” Michael Lillis, a former senior Irish diplomat noted in his Oct. 14, 2024, letter to the Times, shortly after Carter’s 100th birthday.

Carter made a private visit to Ireland in 1995, meeting with Irish President Mary Robinson at Áras an Uachtaráin. He extended his Habitat for Humanity work by building a house in the Dublin suburb of Ballyfermotin. He also found time for some fishing near Kilkenny.

As of publishing this post it is unclear what officials from Ireland, Northern Ireland, and/or the UK will attend Carter’s Jan. 9 state funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Outgoing President Joe Biden, the nation’s second Irish American Catholic leader, will eulogize Carter, the longtime Sunday school teacher at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga.

Trump, meanwhile, has nominated Edward Walsh, president of the Walsh Company in New Jersey, as the next US ambassador to Ireland. One of Walsh’s key qualifications appears to be his membership in the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. His views on Ireland are unknown. Walsh’s US Senate confirmation is likely to lag others nominated for more critical positions in the administration.

Regardless of what happens with future transatlantic relations, Ireland and Northern Ireland have lost a key American ally of the past in Jimmy Carter.

Best of the blog, 2024

It’s been a good year. My work included two public presentations, publication of my first entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, and a trip to Ireland. I reviewed important archival collections at University College Dublin and the New York Public Library. I donated archival material to the University of Galway. The site surpassed its 1,000th post on the way to this 12th annual roundup of the year’s news and content.

In April I presented “The American Press and the Irish Revolution” at the American Irish Historical Society in New York City. The one-hour talk highlighted my ongoing research on this topic. In October I presented my paper, “Ireland’s ‘Bloody Sundays’ and The Pittsburgh Catholic, 1920 & 1972,” at the American Journalism Historians Association’s annual conference in Pittsburgh, my native city. This paper and my other work are found in the American Reporting of Irish Independence section.

The DIB published my entry on Michael Joseph O’Brien. The Irish Catholic (Dublin) published my essay on “The ever-changing American Irish.” I have two longform pieces queued for 2025 publication in scholarly journals. One is a non-Irish subject. Detail once published.

1953 letter & shamrocks.

During my November trip to Ireland I donated some 50 family letters to Imicre, The Kerby A. Miller Collection, Irish Emigrant Letters and Memoirs from North America at the University of Galway. The database of scanned and transcribed letters went online in March 2024.

The letters I donated are primary between a daughter of my Kerry-born maternal grandparents (my aunt) and several cousins in Ireland. They are dated from the 1970s and 1980s. A few older letters between other correspondents are dated from January 1921 through St. Patrick’s Day 1953. I have been told the material will be uploaded to the public database sometime in 2025.

More highlights:

–Most popular post of the year: United Ireland in 2024? Fiction and fact

–Voters in the Republic of Ireland this year decided a constitutional referendum as well as local and European Union elections. The electorate there and in Northern Ireland also decided national elections with historical and contemporary implications. See:

–I toured Flanders fields in Belgium, including the Island of Ireland Peace Park (Photo below), and heard Fergal Keane “On war reporting and trauma, then and now” at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy.

–I have visited more than two dozen St. Patrick’s churches in four countries. This year I finally walked inside the Basilica of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. (Photo below)

–Guest posts: Mark Bulik contributed an excerpt from his book, Ambush at Central Park: When the IRA Came to New York; Felix Larkin provided John Bruton (1947-2024), an appreciation.

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My work often requires the assistance of librarians and archivists. Special thanks to the staff at the New York Public Library for their assistance in reviewing the Maloney collection of Irish historical papers and Frank P. Walsh papers; and at UCD with the Eamon de Valera papers and Desmond FitzGerald papers. Here in DC, I am grateful for the personal assistance and access to materials at the Library of Congress, Georgetown University Library, and Catholic University of American Library. This year I also received virtual help from the Kansas City (Mo.) Public Library; Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse (N.Y.) University; the Social Welfare History Archives at the University of Minnesota; and Iona University in New Rochelle, N.Y.

I am grateful to all visitors to this site, especially my email subscribers. Wishing happy holidays to all my readers.

Basilica of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

Round tower at Island of Ireland Peace Park in Belgium.

Coalition talks begin for new Irish government

UPDATE 2:

“… the real story of this election is the hardening of the center-right bloc, hegemonic even with its historically much-reduced vote. It is still able to win enough seats, on low enough turnout, to continue flying the flag for the world of chambers of commerce, landlords, and big farmers who have so long dictated the pace of Irish politics, added to a more recent cast of tech giants. Today playing with anti-immigration rhetoric, they still hope that young Irish people doubting their prospects at home will continue to find a better future in emigration, rather than change Ireland itself.”–David Broder in Jacobin

UPDATE 1:

All 174 Dáil Éireann seats have been determined in Ireland’s general election. Fianna Fáil won 48 seats. Fine Gael, another traditional center right party, won 38 seats, one fewer than the 39 secured by left-leaning Sinn Féin. Independent candidates claimed 23 seats. Labour and Social Democrats each won 11 seats. People Before Profit-Solidarity won three seats; Aontú secured two; and the Green Party retained only one of the 12 seats it held in the previous government.

Micheál Martin

Negotiations to secure a majority coalition of at least 88 members–and most leaders would want some padding, too–have begun in private meetings and in media reports. FF’s Micheál Martin, likely to emerge as the next taoiseach, has said Donald Trump’s return to the White House on Jan. 20 is “an effective deadline” for Ireland’s government formation, Politico.eu reports.

Wired notes that Ireland’s election result bucks the global trend this year of far-right and populist parties and leaders making significant gains in Europe and the US. The losers are claiming the election was rigged and spewing other conspiracy theories on social media.

ORIGINAL POST:

Voters in the Republic of Ireland have signaled a desire for stability instead of change. They have returned center-right Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael party candidates who will need a third partner–likely Labour or the Social Democrats–to complete the next coalition government majority. Ireland’s Green party, smallest partner in the 2020-through October 2024 FF-FG coalition, faded in the Nov. 29 polling.

Ballots are still being counted in the country’s proportional representation/single transferable vote system. Voters can choose as many, or as few, candidates as they like in order of preference within each multi-seat constituency. See a detailed explanation.

A total of 174 representatives are being chosen to Dáil Éireann, an increase of 14 seats from the previous parliament. The number of constituencies has grown from 39 to 43, with each constituency having from three to five members. The expansion is based on the Republic’s growing population, now over 5 million.

Some highlights:

  • Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin; Fine Gale‘s Simon Harris, and Sinn Féin‘s Mary Lou McDonald have been re-elected to their seats in the Dáil. Martin seems best positioned to become the next taoiseach, or prime minister, with FF apparently heading toward the most seats.
  • Sinn Féin likely will be among the top three finishers, a better outcome than expected after taking losses in local and European Union elections this summer, then being roughed up this fall by several internal scandals. But the left-leaning united Ireland party will not be in position to form a coalition.
  • Gangland boss Gerry “The Monk” Hutch nearly secured the fourth and final seat in the Dublin Central constituency.
  • Voters in Limerick noticed that Maurice Quinlivan of Sinn Féin and Dean Quinn of The Irish People party were listed ahead of Willie O’Dea of Fianna Fail and the Social Democrats’ Elisa O’Donovan on their ballots. The deviation from alphabetical order could result in challenges to the result.
  • Two groups monitoring anti-social behavior and misinformation claim to have documented more than four dozen episodes of politically motivated violence, threats, or harassment against candidates or their canvassers in the weeks before the election.
  • The national turnout was just shy of 60 percent.

mage from An Coimisiún Toghcháin, The Electoral Commission.