Category Archives: Politics

‘Trusk’ shutdown of USAID ripples through Ireland, world

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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 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

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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

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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?

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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.

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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.

***

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.

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

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