Tag Archives: Timothy A. Smiddy

Irish Embassy USA changes location; loses charm, history

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The Embassy of Ireland USA in Washington, D.C. has relocated from an historic early 20th century mansion to a recently renovated 1966 office building steps from the White House. The old location was the home of the Irish republic in the American capital for 75 years.

New home of the Embassy of Ireland USA.

“We begin to write the next chapter in the great story of Ireland-U.S. relations,” Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris said during the Sept. 25 ribbon cutting at the new  embassy offices at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Known as The Mills Building, the 11-story building was renovated in 2022. It is across the street from Lafayette Park and the two-block portion of Pennsylvania Avenue closed to vehicle traffic, between 17th and 15th streets.

Access to the White House is highly restricted to guided tour groups, though Irish dignitaries are welcomed to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue every March. The grounds were officially closed by President Woodrow Wilson during the First World War. Fencing and other security measures began to appear during the 19th century.

The Munsey Building, shown in 1919, was demolished in 1980.

As many readers will know, the White House was designed by the Irish-born architect James Hoban. Fewer readers will know the first official offices of the Irish Free State in Washington were located in the Munsey Building, 1321 E. St. NW, between 13th and 14th streets, not too far from the new embassy. Timothy A. Smiddy represented the state until 1929. The Irish National Bureau produced the Friends of Irish Freedom’s weekly News Letter in the Munsey Building from 1919 to 1922. Éamon De Valera also kept an office there during his 1919-1920 tour of the United States.[1]See my November 2020 post, “Washington, D.C.’s Irish hot spots, 1919-1921“.

“This will be an excellent base from which to grow our vital political, economic and cultural ties with the US over the years ahead,” Harris said of the new Irish Embassy, according to an official statement. He emphasized that Ireland is the fifth largest source of foreign direct investment in the US, and that Irish companies have created more than 200,000 American jobs.

Leaving Embassy Row

The Irish Embassy was previously located at 2234 Massachusetts Avenue NW, on Sheridan Circle, part of the city’s historic “Embassy Row.” The semidetached limestone residence was designed by William Penn Cresson in the Louis XVI manner. Completed in 1909, it is known as the Henrietta M. Halliday House, after the widow of a wealthy businessman. It is unclear if she ever lived in the house, which was sold in 1911.[2]”Henrietta M. Halliday House (Irish Chancery)”, HABS No. DC-261, Historic American Buildings Survey, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, National Park Service, U.S. Department … Continue reading

The former Irish Embassy in October 1924, with Irish and EU flags at right, Ukrainian flag draped from balcony.

The Irish government purchased the property for $72,000 in August 1949. At the time, Ireland’s presence in Washington was still described as legation. Three months later Irish Minister to Washington Seán Nunan welcomed Irish Minister of Agriculture James Dillon, who was visiting the city for an international conference.[3]”Society News”, (Washington) Evening Star, Nov. 30, 1949. In March 1950, John Joseph Hearne became the first Irish ambassador to Washington.

The property is assessed at $6,548,040, according to DC tax records. It is being sold by the commercial real estate firm CBRE, which says it has not set an asking price. The adjoining 2232 Massachusetts Ave. is being co-marketed by residential real estate firm Compass for $2,995,000. See their Oct. 6 press release. (This paragraph was updated from the original post.)

In December 2023, the Irish government purchased the nine-bedroom mansion at 2221 30th Street NW as its official ambassadorial residence. The $12.25 million sale price shaved more than $4 million off the $16.5 million list price. The state began renting the 15,000 square-foot mansion as it sold its former ambassadorial residence at 2244 S Street NW, known as the Frederic Delano House, after an uncle of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That property sold for $8 million in March 2024.

Exempt & delinquent taxes

The new Irish ambassador’s residence had an outstanding District of Columbia tax bill of $33,502 as of Sept. 30. A notice of $153,910 in delinquent taxes and penalties was sent by the District to the Irish government in April. More than $30,000 in late fees and interest had been assessed since the property was purchase in December 2023. The most recent statement, dated Aug. 4, shows that no new assessments or penalties have been levied against the property, which suggests an exemption is now in place. The Irish Embassy could not be reached through its general telephone number.

Irish ambassador’s residence.

The former embassy property was exempt from taxes. More than 600 properties in the District owned by foreign governments accounted for $50.2 million in foregone tax revenue in 2019.[4]Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, May 2019, citing District of Columbia Office of the Chief Financial Officer 2018. The U.S. government owns some 2,800 properties exempt from District taxes, with an estimated market value of $52 billion, or $917.7 million in foregone property tax revenue annually. And then there are religious institutions, schools, and assorted non-profits, in addition to the District government’s own property, also exempt from taxes.

The Irish government’s tax-exempt status on other properties does not mean it automatically received a discount on a commercial lease, which I assume is the arrangement at The Mills Building. The U.S. State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions regulates such matters, which are more complicated than can be addressed here. Reciprocal treatment in the foreign country–in this case, the U.S. government in Ireland–is certainly a factor.

Personal note

On a personal note, I enjoyed visiting the former Irish Embassy on several occasions since I moved to Washington nearly 12 years ago. These opportunities came through my membership in Irish Network-DC, a professional and social group. The place certainly had the elegant feel of an earlier age, when the Society pages of DC dailies regularly reported the comings-and-goings of diplomats and other special guests. I visited the new ambassador’s residence once for an IN-DC event.

I live barely a five-minute walk from the now former embassy location. I enjoyed walking Irish visitors past the exterior, then continuing a few blocks further up Embassy Row to the small park centered by a statue of Robert Emmet.

At least Irish patriot remains in place.

References

References
↑1 See my November 2020 post, “Washington, D.C.’s Irish hot spots, 1919-1921“.
↑2 ”Henrietta M. Halliday House (Irish Chancery)”, HABS No. DC-261, Historic American Buildings Survey, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1978.
↑3 ”Society News”, (Washington) Evening Star, Nov. 30, 1949.
↑4 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, May 2019, citing District of Columbia Office of the Chief Financial Officer 2018.

‘Special relationship’ or the fading of the green?

This month marks the 100th anniversary of official diplomatic relations between the United States and Ireland. In presenting his credentials to US President Calvin Coolidge, Irish professor Timothy A. Smiddy became not only the first minister plenipotentiary appointed by the Irish Free State, but also the first representative from any member of the British Commonwealth.

Smiddy was first appointed as the Free State’s minister in the US in March 1922, but he had to combat both official disinterest and untrustworthiness among his own staff. US officials noted the Free State had the same dominion status as Canada and therefore believed that Irish matters should be addressed through the British embassy until told otherwise, RTÉ explains.

Irish ambassador Timothy Smiddy (left) with US Assistant Secretary of State J.B. Wright at the State Department on October 7, 1924. Library of Congress

To mark the centenary of bilateral relations, Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris last week arrived in Washington to meet with US President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a proud Irish American Catholic. The two leaders met at the White House, though a planned Rose Garden ceremony was postponed due to Hurricane Milton in Florida. In an official statement of fewer than 100 words, Biden “reflected on the deep cultural, people-to-people and economic ties between the two countries, and expressed confidence that the next 100 years will see even deeper cooperation.”

Deeper? I doubt it.

“As Biden’s presidency ends, it also represents the close of an era for a particular type of Irish-American political narrative and attitude given demographic, cultural and generational changes,” historian Diarmaid Ferriter wrote in the Irish Times. “…the days of an American president touching the pulses of Irish ancestral memory are over. For reasons of tradition, Irish visits to the White House may continue in some form, but they are unlikely to carry the same emotional heft or diplomatic significance of yesteryear.”

A Times‘ editorial made a similar point:

The last big wave of emigration from Ireland to the US was over 30 years ago. Moreover, the US is becoming much more diverse and Irish America is becoming much less coherent and influential. … The symbolic handing over of the shamrock may continue each March, but there is work to be done in maintaining Ireland’s real influence. The traditional calling card may not have the same power in future.

These sentiments reprise what was written during Biden’s April 2023 visit to the Republic and Northern Ireland, where he marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Since then Biden dropped his re-election bid, ending Ireland’s chance to keep a close friend in the White House for another four years. Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris will have the same personal and political interests in Ireland. Trump could be hostile to Ireland because of its stance on Palestine, though moderated by the self-interest of his golf property in Clare.

Harris (Simon, not Kamala) said the 1998 peace process is the “single most important achievement” of Ireland’s relationship with the US. “Bipartisan support has come from all levels of government and from communities in each and every one of the 50 states, and today I say thank you for that to our friends across the US,” he said at Georgetown University.

The Embassy of Ireland, USA, in Washington, D.C. Irish and EU flags at right, Ukrainian flag on balcony.

The New York Times noted the centenary of US-Irish bilateral relations as a secondary point in a story focused on how the George J. Mitchell scholarship program in Ireland and Northern Ireland might have to be discontinued after 25 years due inadequate funding.  Mitchell was the US envoy who guided the Good Friday accords. Congress pulled funding for the scholarship program in 2014 during a round of budget cuts, and Northern Ireland did the same in 2015. The Irish government remains committed to matching funds raised by the U.S.-Ireland Alliance from philanthropic sources, according to the Times.

See Irish Envoy Received By The President on the front page of the October 18, 1924, issue of the The Gaelic American.

The Washington Post, like most US media outlets, ignored the diplomatic centenary except to mention the Rose Garden ceremony was being cancelled because of the hurricane. U.S. Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Richard E. Neal (D-Mass) issued a joint statement as co-chairs of the Congressional Friends of Ireland Caucus. Their resolution to recognize the centenary and the “mutually beneficial economic relationship” has languished without passage since July, more a reflection on the dysfunction of the US Congress than the state of US-Irish relations.

Economic factors are likely to be the main driver of the US-Irish relationship going forward. Ireland’s well-educated, English-speaking workforce and strategic location as the geographic fulcrum between the US East Coast and European continent are strong advantages. Economics will influence the politics that determine any US involvement in a potential future referendum on whether to reunify the island of Ireland.

The term “special relationship” is typically applied to the US and the UK. But it seems just as appropriate for the US and Ireland over the long century measured from Charles Stewart Parnell’s 1880 tour. The two countries are likely to remain friendly, but the special, sentimental US-Irish relationship appears to be fading.