Best of the blog, 2024

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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.

***

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.

Remembering the Freeman’s Journal & Lartigue monorail

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Two Irish business enterprises that ceased operations a century ago remain lively in the nation’s memory. The Listowel and Ballybunion Railway, a unique monorail, made its final journey in October 1924, ending 36 years of passenger and freight service in County Kerry. Two months later, the last issue of the Freeman’s Journal, a 161-year-old national daily, rolled off the presses in Dublin. The events were unconnected, but the railway and the newspaper shared a few touch points.

The well-established Freeman reported the monorail from its Leap Year Day 1888 opening and published the legal notices about the sale of its assets. The single-track train never made much profit, and the new Irish Free State government’s decision to exclude it from the railway nationalization scheme was a fatal blow. Many of the monorail’s passengers–whether locals or visitors–surely carried copies of the Freeman as they wobbled along the 9-mile, elevated rail from the market town to the seaside resort. More significantly, both businesses were attacked by anti-treaty republicans during Ireland’s civil war: the rail line because it was used to transport Free State troops; the newspaper because it editorialized against the “irregulars.”

The Lartigue monorail in Kerry opened on Leap Year Day in 1888. The line closed in 1924.

The Freeman reported that the Dublin judge who allowed the “famous” railway’s receivers to close the line “did so with regret,” as if to imbue the legal formality with a romantic resignation.[1]”Mono Railway To Go”, Freeman’s Journal, Oct. 8, 1924. The paper retold humorous stories of how operators had to balance passengers and livestock on each side of the pannier-style carriages. The monorail, popularly known by the surname of inventor Charles Lartigue, years after was recalled in verse and a few books. In 2003, the Lartigue Monorail museum opened in Listowel, including a replica model operating on a short stretch of track.

The Freeman’s cessation was compelled by “the conditions of the time,” its editors noted. But, they added, there remained “the consolation of good work done, of great aims accomplished, of a a nation freer and happier for the existence of an institution that now passes away and become a part–and an unforgettable part–of a victorious people’s story.”[2]”1763-1924” editorial, Freeman’s Journal, Dec. 19, 1924

The Freeman was certainly the more consequential of the two businesses. Its digitized archive is “said to be the most important newspaper source” for more than a century and a half of Irish political, commercial, and cultural life. Dublin historian Felix Larkin has noted the paper figures prominently in James Joyce’s Ulysses, while the attack on its equipment by anti-treaty republicans reflects today’s threats to the free press in many parts of the world. Larkin encouraged An Post to issue a special stamp commemorating the paper’.

Over the years this site has published several pieces about both enterprises, a few of which are linked below the photo for additional reading. Enjoy.

May 2024 launch of the Freeman’s Journal stamp with, left to right, Aileen Mooney of An Post; Catherine Munro, granddaughter of Martin Fitzgerald, the paper’s last owner; and historian Felix Larkin, chair of the Philatelic Advisory Committee. Photo taken in front of the O’Connell Street, Dublin, statue of Sir John Gray, owner of the Freeman’s Journal from 1841 until his death in 1875.

Freeman’s Journal

Lartigue monorail

References

References
↑1 ”Mono Railway To Go”, Freeman’s Journal, Oct. 8, 1924.
↑2 ”1763-1924” editorial, Freeman’s Journal, Dec. 19, 1924

Coalition talks begin for new Irish government

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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.

Some Irish books for holiday gift giving, or ‘yourshelf’

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A Christmas tree sprouted in the lobby of my Dublin hotel during a mid-November visit to the Irish capital. In the U.S., the arrival of the Thanksgiving signals the start of the year-end holidays. Since books are a great gift to give others–or ourselves–below I provide details of a dozen titles that have found their way to my reading chair or caught my attention in the press this year. There is an emphasis on books that explore aspects of the Irish in America, or journalism. Descriptions are taken from publisher promotions and modified, as appropriate, by my own assessments. Books are listed in alphabetical order by author’s surname. Remember to support your local bookseller. Enjoy. MH

  • Atlas series, multiple editors, Atlas of the Irish Civil War. [Cork University Press, 2024] This title joins Atlas of the Great Irish Famine 1845-52, published in 2012, and Atlas of the Irish Revolution, 2017. With contributions from over 90 scholars, this book is a key resource for historians or casual readers and a must-mention for this list.
  • Mark Bulik, Ambush at Central Park: When the IRA Came to New York. [Fordham, 2023] The author provided this Guest Post excerpt in January.
  • Mary Cogan, Moments of Reflection, Mindful Thoughts and Photographs. [Crannsilini Publishing, 2024.] Mary publishes the popular Listowel Connection website. Her book is not available online, but she welcomes email at listowelconnection@gmail.com. “We’ll sort something out,” she told me.
  • Gessica Cosi, Reshaping’ Atlantic Connections: Ireland and Irish America 1917-1921. [Edward Everett Root, 2024] Uses U.S.-born Irish leader Eamon de Valera’s June 1919 to December 1920 tour of America to explore the varieties of Irish American identities and nationalist ideologies. Also probes the larger question of what it meant to be “ethnic” in the U.S. during and after its entry into the Great War.
  • Seán Creagh, The Wolfhounds of Irish-American Nationalism: A History of Clan na Gael, 1867-Present. [Peter Lang, 2023] Claims to be “the first book covering the entire history of Clan na Gael,” the U.S.-based revolutionary group supporting Irish independence and unification since the mid-19th century. The author also asserts there is “an academic bias in Ireland against the study and recognition of groups like Clan na Gael in the overall struggle for Irish independence.” Hmm. Kudos for Creagh’s effort, but his writing is awkward and the lack of an index reduces the book’s usefulness.  
  • Hasia R. Diner, Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America. [St. Martin Press, 2024] Despite contrary popular belief, Diner insists the prevailing relationships between Jewish and Irish Americans were overwhelmingly cooperative, and the two groups were dependent upon one another to secure stable and upwardly mobile lives in their new home.
  • Myles Dungan, Land Is All That Matters: The Struggle That Shaped Irish History [Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024] Examines two hundred years of agrarian conflict from the famine of 1741 to the eve of World War Two. Some great stuff for those of us with an interest in this niche topic, but at over 600 pages, this tome is probably not for casual readers. I found Dungan’s overuse of French and Latin phrases annoying.   
  • Diarmaid Ferriter, The Revelation of Ireland, 1995-2020, [Profile Books, 2024] In what might be considered a sequel or addendum to The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000, his 2005 overview, Ferriter explores the quarter century of developments on the island from the eve of the Good Friday Agreement to COVID.
  • Eamonn Mallie, Eyewitness to War & Peace. [Merrion Press, 2024] The Northern Ireland journalist details his experiences of covering the Troubles, from street violence to exclusive interviews with key figures such as Gerry Adams, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, John Hume, Ian Paisley, and Margaret Thatcher.
  • Timothy J. Meagher, Becoming Irish American: The Making and Remaking of a People From Roanoke to JFK [Yale University Press, 2023] Reveals how Irish American identity was forged, how it has transformed, and how it has held lasting influence on American culture. See my Irish Catholic essay on this book and William V. Shannon’s The American Irish, a foundational study of Irish America from 1963.
  • Thomas J. Rowland, Patriotism is a Catholic Virtue: Irish-American Catholics and the Church in the Era of the Great War, 1900-1918. [The Catholic University of America Press, 2023] How Hibernian Romanists combated U.S. nativists’ religious and social attacks, proved themselves as loyal Americans during the First World War, and directed the course of Irish American nationalism in the cause of their motherland’s fight for freedom. Rowland provides some good background details about Irish influence on the U.S. Catholic press.
  • David Tereshchuk, A Question of Paternity, My Life as an Unaffiliated Reporter. [Envelope Books, 2024] I attended a conversation between Tereshchuk and Irish activist and journalist Don Mullan in September at the American Irish Historical Society in New York. They shared their experiences of Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, which Tereshchuk covered as a broadcast journalist. Tereshchuk revisits the event and other aspects of his life beyond Ireland in this memoir.

    Some of the books listed above.

Pre-Irish & post-U.S. election letter from Dublin

DUBLIN–I arrived here days after Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election and as Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris declared a general election date for later this month. The Irish Times headlines above prompted two quick thoughts:

  • Irish campaigns are mercifully shorter than the U.S election calendar.
  • Trump’s win not not only thrusts America into the unknown, but also Ireland and the rest of Europe and the world.

Both elections are main topics of conversation in the once low-slung capital, where church steeples, the 17-floor Liberty Hall (opened in 1965), and the decommissioned power-generating Poolbeg “Stacks” (taller than the office tower), once dominated the skyline. Today, the city is filled with construction cranes and scaffolding-wrapped buildings. At least a dozen residential and commercial towers with floor counts in the teens or low 20s are rising in the city, most on the south side of the River Liffey. That’s no match for the 58-floor Trump Tower and other U.S. skyscrapers, but a noticeable change from my first visit here 25 years ago.

Trump’s election is raising concerns in Ireland. A post-election Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll found 58 percent of respondents are “more worried about the future”, an 8 point increase from September. Just 28 percent said Trump’s return to the While House will make “no difference” in Ireland, while fewer then 20 percent answered “less worried” or “don’t know.”

Simon Harris, bottom poster.

My Irish family and friends, plus a random mix of taxi drivers, UCD library and archives staff, and political observers in the media, suggested the electorate is adverse to radical change. That seems to favor the two main center right political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which have been coalition partners since 2000. Harris, the Fine Gael leader, is favored to remain taoiseach, or prime minister.

Like the U.S., lack of affordable housing is a major domestic issue in Ireland. The biggest concern about Trump is related to his economic policies, especially trade tariffs. Irish Times columnist Cliff Taylor detailed how Irish exports to the U.S. in the first nine months of this year increased by 28 percent to €52.5 billion. He continued:

“From the U.S. point of view, the trade deficit with Ireland so far this year is more than €35 billion. The vast bulk of Irish sales to the US — 80 percent so far this year — are chemicals and pharmaceuticals, where Irish exports to the US surged by no less than one-third compared to the same period last year. To say the least, it was not a good time for this to happen. And the pharma sector — a big employer and taxpayer — looks exposed as the new administration examines why the U.S. has a big trade deficit with Ireland. Unlike most other big US companies here, it targets much of its exports back to the American market.”

While the Irish campaign season is shorter, it is not exempt from the daily rough-and-tumble of national politics. Michael O’Leary, the flamboyant and longstanding chief executive of Ryanair, made headlines for a swipe at the high number of teachers in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish legislature. “I wouldn’t generally employ a lot of teachers to go out and get things done,” he said in remarks endorsing the re-election of a candidate with private sector business experience. Let’s remember here the teacher backgrounds of Pádraic Pearse, Éamon de Valera, and other figures of Irish history and politics. For good measure, O’Leary also said the Green party needed to be “weeded out” of Irish politics.

Housing is a key domestic issue.

In another campaign flare up with historical overtones, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said it is unfair to demonize and force her party members to defend the actions of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles. “You don’t ask someone who was a baby in the 1970s about things that happened in the 1970s. That’s not a reasonable proposition, it wouldn’t be reasonably done with somebody from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil or the Labour Party,” McDonald said. She criticized the “Free State establishment,” a reference to the Irish Free State that emerged in 1922 and split republican separatists into civil war.

That’s rather tame stuff compared to calling your opponent “scum”, “fascist,” and the other insults slung between Trump and K. Harris during the too long U.S. campaign. But there are still a few weeks to go. I’ll write about the Irish election outcome at the end of the month.

Photo essay: Honoring Ireland’s Great War dead in Belgium

At Tyne Cot Cemetery near Passendale, Belgium, this Irish soldier’s name and regiment, religious and political identity, are only “Known Unto God” (script at bottom of headstone).

The sacrifice of Irish soldiers during the First World War, 1914-1918, was complicated by the unfolding separatist revolution at home. Over 200,000 Irishmen from the Catholic nationalist and Protestant unionist communities fought in the war. Upwards of 40,000 lost their lives, while tens of thousands more sustained physical and psychological injuries. Participation in the Great War was remembered in Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom after the 1920 partition, but ignored in the Irish Free State, later the independent Republic of Ireland.

The Island of Ireland Peace Park in Messines, Belgium, near Ypres, is not only a memorial to Irish soldiers of both communities, but also an attempt to bolster wider reconciliation among the Irish people. It might be the most important lieu de mémoire of Irish history outside of Ireland. Some might argue that designation belongs to the many An Gorta Mor (Great Famine) memorials outside of Ireland, which represent the mid-19th century diaspora. Comments on this point of debate are welcome.

Paddy Harte and Glenn Barr, nationalist and unionist politicians from the Republic and the North, respectively, conceived of the peace park project. At the November 11, 1998, dedication, (seven months after the Good Friday Agreement) former Irish President Mary McAleese apologized on behalf of the Republic for the south’s “national amnesia” about the war. She was joined by Queen Elizabeth II and King Albert of Belgium as Irish and British military bands and pipers played a lament. Two years ago, at its 25th anniversary, the park joined nearly 150 other locations in Belgium and France as a USESCO World Heritage site commemorating the Western Front.

A 110-foot-tall Irish round tower is the park’s most distinctive feature. It is made from the stones of a former British Army barracks in Tipperary, a work-house in Westmeath, and each of the island’s other 30 counties. Specially placed windows illuminate the tower’s interior at 11 a.m. every November 11, signifying the armistice that ended the war in 1918.

All the photos in this post are from my October 2024 visit to multiple war sites in the Flanders region. Many thanks to Quasimodo Tours.

Peace Park dedication plaque and Flanders fields in the distance.

Round tower at Island of Ireland Peace Park.

Map at the Hooge Crater Museum shows Irish regiments and insignia.

Unknown soldier of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers at Tyne Cot Cemetery.

Unknown soldier of the Royal Irish Rifles at Tyne Cot.

BULLETIN: Trump’s win could impact Irish election, economy

Donald Trump’s U.S. election win has introduced new uncertainty into Republic of Ireland elections, now set for Nov. 29. Irish officials fear that Trump’s protectionist trade policies and corporate tax cuts could put U.S. foreign direct investment and Irish jobs at risk. That’s on top of wider worries about the European economy, Russian aggression on the continent’s eastern front, and Irish domestic concerns. I’ll be in Dublin Nov. 9-16. Watch for my reports. MH

Revisiting O’Brien’s ‘Irish Pioneers in American Journalism’

On April 12, 1924, the Gaelic American newspaper of New York City published the first installment of a series titled “Irish Pioneers in American Journalism.” It was written by Michael J. O’Brien, a County Cork immigrant and historiographer at the American Irish Historical Society, also based in the city.

Michael J. O’Brien, circa mid 1910s.

“While the fact is generally recognized that for many years men of Irish blood have occupied a conspicuous place in American journalism, few are aware that in this field Irishmen were engaged more than a century ago, and that they exerted a certain influence in moulding the public opinion of their time time,” O’Brien wrote in his introduction. He acknowledged the “meager sketches” of 18th century Irish journalists were based mostly on information from their respective newspapers.

O’Brien’s series appeared weekly in the Gaelic American through the end of July. This was the same period the paper’s editor, exiled Fenian John Devoy, made his triumphant return to Ireland as the fledgling Free State government recovered from the civil war. Each date below is linked to the corresponding installment of O’Brien’s series. (Thanks to Villanova University’s Digital Library, which provides online access to the Gaelic American from 1903 to 1928.)

April 12 * April 19 * April 26

May 3 * May 10 * May 17 * May 24 * May 31

June 7 * June 14 * June 21 * June 28

July 5 * July 12 * July 19 * July 26.

O’Brien apparently had more to say about Irish contributions to American journalism. At the end of the July 26 installment, the Gaelic American published two conflicting notes: One said, “To Be Continued Next Week.” The other, “As Mr. O’Brien is now on his vacation, this most interesting series of articles will be discontinued for the present.” But the series did not return in subsequent issues.

More about O’Brien (1870-1960) can be found in my new profile of him for the online Dictionary of Irish Bibliography. I’m delighted to make this first contribution to the DIB, flagship research project of the the Royal Irish Academy.

O’Brien’s series debuted on the front page of the April 12, 1924, issue of the Gaelic American.

Ireland will hold general election; plus other news & data

After months of speculation, the three leaders of Ireland’s coalition government have agreed to hold a general election. Taoiseach Simon Harris has set Nov. 29 for polling. (This paragraph was revised from the original, written before the date was set.)

Voters will select 174 representatives to Dáil Éireann, an increase of 14 seats from the current parliament as the number of constituencies grows from 39 to 43. Each constituency has from three to five members. The expansion is based on the growing population, now over 5 million.

The new Dáil will select the next  taoiseach, or prime minister, with Harris aiming to keep the job. It seems likely the next leader also will lead a coalition government, as has been the case since the last election, in February 2020, just before the COVID pandemic. Polling indicates none of the major parties are poised to win a majority.

The snap election comes as Sinn Féin, the Irish republican opposition party, is plagued by several scandals. “It’s been a nightmare October for Sinn Féin,” Politico.eu reports, “… raising serious questions about the political survival of Mary Lou McDonald, the Dubliner handpicked by Sinn Féin’s previous leader, Gerry Adams, to take the Northern Ireland-rooted party from the political fringe into power for the first time in the Republic of Ireland.”

The election will be the fourth this year on the island of Ireland. In June, voters in the Republic cast ballots in local government and European Union constituencies. The following month, voters in Northern Ireland decided United Kingdom parliamentary races. In March the Republic also held a referendum on its 1937 constitution. A proposal to include “other durable relationships” beyond marriage and another to eliminate language about women’s “life within the home” were each defeated by nearly 3-1 margins.

Image from An Coimisiún Toghcháin, The Electoral Commission.

Catching up with modern Ireland. Some other contemporary news and data:

  • Ireland’s environmental health is rated “poor” in the latest assessment by the country’s Environmental Protection Agency. The New York Times describes how a Cork sculptor is trying to restore a patch of native rainforest in the Beara Peninsula.
  • The UK government plans to appeal a Belfast court ruling that the 2023 Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act was incompatible with human-rights protections secured in a post-Brexit agreement, Reuters reports.
  • Ireland won’t wait for the rest of the EU to restrict trade with Israel over the occupation of the Palestinian territories and expects to receive legal advice soon on whether it can impose its own curbs.

Data for the 28-county Republic of Ireland. CSO graphic.

‘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.