In 1984 I was part of an Irish American delegation which sought a meeting with the U.S. State Department to discuss Northern Ireland. We were the usual suspects, ethnic newspaper publishers, community activists, longtime Irish American leaders, numbering about 30 in all.
At the time I was publishing a small Irish newspaper in California and the trip to D.C. was a major highlight of my years at the newspaper. Others of the group arrived in Washington, D.C., from all over the country, equally excited. Maybe now, we told ourselves, our government would pay attention to the pressing issue of the North of Ireland which by then had all the characteristics of a nightmare from which our generation of Irish could not seem to awaken.
It was our fond hope that America could provide that wake-up call, that involvement by the U.S. government in brokering some kind of compromise and solution could be the key to the future in the land where so many Americans, 44 million in all, originally hailed from.
As we passed through the doors of the State Department our excitement mounted. Here, after all, was the very bastion of British influence in the U.S, the State Department, notoriously favorable to the line from Whitehall on all things concerning Ireland. Now we felt we would soon set about changing things. The anticipation was palpable.
The gentleman who met us was, I believe, also in charge of Iceland and at least one other Northern European country, and he made it clear pretty quickly that those other countries were his top priority. “Members of NATO,” he explained, a whit apologetically, “not like Ireland.”
By his youth we could tell he was still wet behind the ears in his job. Despite his Irish American name, we soon learned that he knew as little, or as much, as what the Daily Telegraph in London had told him about the conflict.
That was because moments after we sat down he pulled a neat stack of clippings from his file. All were from the Daily Telegraph, a notoriously conservative mouthpiece newspaper in London known for its hostility to Irish nationalism.
We were incredulous, hardly believing our eyes and ears, that the greatest government in the world in the person of this person was seriously trying to fob off the Daily Telegraph as the major unbiased source on Irish issues.
The meeting quickly degenerated into rancor. By then, I’m sure every stereotype written in the Telegraph about Irish Americans must have danced across this young man’s mind. We were angry, hostile and demanded that the U.S. government do better. After an hour or so of this his secretary rescued him with an “urgent” message, clearly pre-planned. He mumbled something about keeping in touch. Of course we never heard from him again, and I’m sure he told his “war story” for a few months about the wild Irish ruffians he faced down in his office.
I thought of that young man and of those Irish Americans at the White House Conference on Trade and Investment in Ireland which took place in May this year in Washington D.C.
This time the Irish were out in force, but so were the Americans. Al Gore, the Vice President of the United States, was merely the warm-up speaker. The contribution of Warren Christopher, the Secretary of State, was low-key and went almost unnoticed. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown talked of the bonds between African Americans whose forefathers came to America in chains and Irish Americans whose ancestors came in coffin ships. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who handled the planning and execution of the conference, confessed that during his visit to Belfast it had not been the big-name politicians, but the community activists on both sides who had impressed him greatly.
Then on a great and glorious night on the White House lawn, during a storm reminiscent of the famous scene from King Lear, the President of the United States addressed 400 or so Irishmen and women, Orange and Green, British and Irish, on the importance of peace in Ireland to his administration.
Symbolically the event took place in a very large tent, and despite the horrendous thunderstorm there was a light in people’s eyes that even a monsoon could not have dimmed.
I thought of the young State Department aide all those years ago as I watched this president finally give the Irish issue the priority and importance it deserved. I thought, too, of how correct the Irish Americans were back then, in believing that America could make the difference in helping bring peace to Ireland.
As for our friend in the State Department, I hoped he was somewhere in Outer Mongolia perhaps, trying vainly to persuade a group of restless natives that the local situation was much better understood by reading one of the London dailies.
And I also thought of those Irish Americans who had been there that day. Some, I knew, had passed on to the next life, some were retired, but a handful, just a bare few, were with me at the White House lawn 11 years after we got short shrift at the State Department. I knew they were probably enjoying the moment just as much as I was. It’s a truly great moment when you feel you’ve arrived.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the July/August 1995 issue of Irish America. ♦
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