On Wednesday night, hours before the official confirmation that US President Joe Biden will travel to Ireland, north and south, for five days next month, a family gathering took place in the most Irish of cities, Boston.

It was a useful opportunity to observe the dynamics of the top tier of the diaspora – blood relatives, in-laws, connections, neighbours, new-found friends, and curious strangers.

The occasion was the Boston College Peace Dinner, located on the 36^th floor of the 100-storey Federal Street skyscraper in Boston. The room was packed with a mixture of powerful public figures of Irish America and 50 visiting Irish CEOs travelling on the Ireland Gateway to Europe trade mission. The attendees were there to get a sense of the latest thinking in Dublin, London, and Washington as the 25^th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaches.

One very obvious conclusion after three hours of interaction is that a powerful section of Irish America is booked to revisit the home place. Twenty-five years after the completion of those Belfast negotiations, the US, British and Irish governments are keen to reflect on the imperfect peace and work on its shortcomings. 

The unknown factor is whether the prodigal sons, the DUP, will boycott the gathering and again opt for isolation. 

*****

George Mitchell, the man who chaired those 1998 negotiations, will be 90 in August.  He may not make it across the Atlantic to Belfast for next month’s events. He has been receiving chemotherapy for a cancer condition. But when he spoke about his life, his values and his bond with Ireland last Wednesday night, he was at his eloquent best.

Senator Mitchell was receiving the Irish Institute Leadership Award. Mindful of his health, he didn’t make the journey from Maine to Boston. Instead, he delivered a ten-minute address by video link. You could hear a pin drop as he looked down the camera lens and connected with every person in the room.

He has told his back story many times before. But as happened when he was alive with what was often called John Hume’s Single Transferrable Speech, Mitchell’s account of his background becomes more poignant and more instructive with each telling.

It’s a story that captures the essence of Irish America and that emotional bond, stronger than steel, that continues through the generations. It also explained what drew Mitchell to the quagmire politics of Northern Ireland and kept him there until he achieved what often seemed like the unattainable.

“My father’s parents were born in Ireland. Late in the 19^th century, they became part of one of the great migrations in history, as they joined the millions fleeing famine and poverty for hope and opportunity in America.

“They ended up in Boston where my father was born. Sadly, he never knew his parents and was raised in a Catholic orphanage, not far from where you are this evening.

“In those days, on weekends the nuns would take the children to Catholic churches throughout New England. There, after mass on Sundays, the children were lined up in front of the altar rail and anybody who wanted to adopt one simply took the child by the hand and walked out of the church. In that way, in Italian Maine, my father was adopted by an elderly childless couple who were not Irish. Years later, after abuses became widespread, protective laws were enacted.

“The couple who adopted my father, while very poor, raised him in a home filled with love and warmth. He left school at the age of 10 and began a life of hard work, always on the edge of financial disaster. He ended up as a janitor at a local school. He had no sense of his Irish heritage. I never heard him say the word Ireland. He and my mother – herself an immigrant who worked nights in a textile mill – had a dream that kept them going through hard times that their children would get the education they never had.  And we did.

“As a result, each of us has lived a life far beyond my parents’ imagination.

“That says something about my parents. It also says something about the promise of America, of freedom and opportunity. 

“Less than a century after my father’s birth, I retired from the US Senate where I served as Majority Leader. President Clinton then asked me to serve as his representative in Northern Ireland. 

“It was to be part-time for six months.  It turned out to be five very intense years, during which I chaired three separate but related negotiations, but in retrospect, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Then I had the honour to serve for 10 years as the Chancellor of Queen’s University so I was fortunate to spend much of the later part of my life in the land of my father’s family. 

“I like to think that he is looking down at us right now, pleased that his son gained some sense of the heritage he had but that he never knew or understood.

“So, while I am thankful for your recognition and the award this evening, it is I who should be and am profoundly grateful for the warmth and the friendship with which I, my wife and our children have been embraced by the people of Northern Ireland.” 

The Brexiteer’s volte-face

Mitchell knew this included the wife, parents and sister of Robert Mauro and he extended his sympathy to them. Mauro was the executive director of the Irish Institute and the founding director of the Global Irish Institute at Boston College. He certainly would have looked forward to the Good Friday Agreement anniversary events in Belfast next month. But on October 31 last year, he died from cancer, aged 46. He is survived by his Irish-born wife, Barbara Pyke, and their daughters, Dara and Tess.

One of the guest speakers at the dinner was the junior Minister in the Northern Ireland office, Steve Baker, the 51-year-old MP from Wycombe in Buckinghamshire since 2010. 

He was chairman of the Conservative Party’s European Research Group from 2016 to 2017 and again from 2019 to 2020.  As a leading Eurosceptic, he was one of those who opposed Theresa May’s “backstop solution” to resolve Northern Ireland-related issues with the EU. The row ended her tenure in Downing Street.

Last autumn, when Liz Truss was Prime Minister, Baker was the first leading Brexiteer to signal that the British government was now keen to mend its fences with Brussels. The volte-face also involved seeking a return to a positive neighbourly relationship with Dublin. 

Baker’s dramatic change may, in time, become a matter of interest for students of British-Irish relations. Anecdotes that may help such work include Baker’s assertion that before he announced the policy shift at a fringe meeting of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester in October 2022, he cleared his comments with just the senior Northern Ireland office minister, another leading Brexiteer, Chris Heaton-Harris.

The background story to his recent description of Boris Johnson as a “pound-shop Nigel Farage” last week is also illuminating. The former Prime Minister was scheduled to give evidence to a House of Commons Committee, investigating whether he misled parliament during the Covid pandemic. On the very same afternoon, MPs were due to vote on Rishi Sunak’s proposed deal to end the Northern Ireland protocol row with the European Union. 

The Sunak camp knew that if Boris managed to gather 60 rebel Conservative MPs who were prepared to vote with him against the Sunak plan, the Prime Minister would be undermined and forced to depend on Labour votes to secure a victory. 

Baker deliberately went out early and very publicly with his “pound-shop Farage” jibe to cut Boris below knees and frighten off would-be rebels. The strategy worked. A miserly 22 joined a failed coup.

Baker made it clear in Boston that the Sunak government will not be rowing back from the Windsor Framework.

In the company of a subset of Boston’s Irish-Americans, Baker found himself among kindred spirits. He is from working-class roots. His father was in the building trade. One of nine children, he studied aerospace engineering at Southampton University. He served for a time in the Royal Air Force and worked for several years in business before switching to a career in politics.

Baker made it clear in Boston that the Sunak government will not be rowing back from the Windsor Framework deal made with Brussels. He told how the DUP’s South Antrim MP, Sammy Wilson, claims that he (Baker) would not accept the Windsor Framework deal for his Wycombe constituency. Baker’s response is that “Wycombe is not a post-conflict society, governed by the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement, on an island with an open border with what is, sorry, a foreign country”.

His view is that the Windsor Framework has “got some hard compromises for unionists and Eurosceptics but it is the right thing to do” and he has not “the slightest shadow of regret for making it possible… and promoting it to everyone”.

He describes himself as “really optimistic” and says he “gets on terrific with the Tánaiste” and “can even pronounce the title”. He is “looking forward to the pleasure of meeting the Taoiseach, Mr Varadkar”.

In further explaining his deepening understanding of British-Irish relations, Minister Baker quoted remarks made by Ireland’s ambassador to the UK, Martin Fraser, at a recent reception.  The Irish diplomat and former secretary general to the government had described the London-Dublin tiff as “a family row that would be terrible at the time but as soon as we get over it, we will get over it fast”.

Minister Baker assured his Boston audience that “we have got over that row” and that “the island of Ireland is going to have such a 25 years ahead of it”.

Keeping up with the Kennedys

A 42-year-old pale-skinned, red-haired Boston native listened intently to the remarks of the British government representative. Last December, President Biden appointed him the United States Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs. He doesn’t just have to toil in the place when the likes of George Mitchell achieved spectacular success. He also has to deal with what at times must feel like the impossible burden of lineage. He is Joe Kennedy III, a member of the most famous Irish-American families, the grandson of former Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy, the grand-nephew of former President, John Kennedy and former Senator, Edward Kennedy.

In 1972, eight years before Joe Kennedy was born, British soldiers shot dead fourteen people on Derry’s streets during what became known as Bloody Sunday. In the autumn of that year, his grand-uncle, Ted Kennedy, made contact with John Hume in Derry. He was scheduled to travel to a Nato event in Bonn, the capital of West Germany. He was keen to receive a briefing on what was going on in Northern Ireland and was advised that Hume, as a civil rights activist, might be able to advise him.  Hume was shocked by the contact: He had never been to Germany. He gathered the money for the trip and set off on a journey that would shape his political life.

The discussion Ted Kennedy and John Hume had over dinner at the home of the Irish ambassador in Bonn, Sean Ronan, in time led to the establishment of the lobby group known as the Four Horsemen: Kennedy; US House of Representatives Speaker Tip O’Neill New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan; and Governor of New York Hugh Carey. They accepted Hume’s prompting to speak out against Ireland sympathisers in the United States providing guns to fuel the Troubles. 

They were instrumental in influencing President Jimmy Carter to issue, in 1977, what was the first White House statement on Northern Ireland’s Troubles. It encouraged the British and Irish governments to search for peace through dialogue and promised that US economic support would buttress any agreed solution.

President Carter and the Four Horsemen were all Democrats. But after the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, it was a Republican president, Ronald Regan, who sanctioned the creation of the International Fund for Ireland, an aid programme that continues thirty-seven years later. 

Through the Clinton years and George Mitchell’s work, the US interest in Northern Ireland saw varying periods of intensity. But it never stopped. 

“In this next chapter we must be certain that investment reach every community and every neighbourhood.”

Joe Kennedy

When he arrives in Ireland next month, President Biden will bring new energy to that US commitment. Joe Kennedy will be given the responsibility to front it. In his remarks to last Wednesday’s event, there were cadences of his late grandfather, Bobby Kennedy.

He suggested to his audience that “all politics is economics… because, at its core, economics is about the political division of wealth and opportunity”.  He also said that “economic opportunity acts to lessen tensions that can come with alienation and division”.

Kennedy’s audience on Wednesday night included the Provost of Boston College, David Quigley, whose ancestors came from Malin Head in Donegal’s Inishowen Penninsula. Under his leadership, the university continues to deepen its understanding of Irish affairs. Joe Kennedy has access to that resource. His remarks on Wednesday suggested he is briefing himself on the failures as well as the successes of the peace process.

Loyalist communities that once had the guarantee of meaningful employment in Belfast’s shipyards often make the case that the Good Friday Agreement has provided little for them.  Maybe Joe Kennedy was acknowledging that grievance when he said:

“In this next chapter we must be certain that investment reach every community and every neighbourhood… so it is not just parity of esteem but parity of opportunity…

“As you all know that is the challenge that has befuddled the ablest minds and the most dedicated hearts here in the United States… but it is of major importance in Northern Ireland to ensure that all voices are not just heard but that all dreams have a chance for realisation… that everyone’s future is bright.”

A conversation with Bertie Ahern

The most able worker of the room in Boston, the most popular choice of those seeking selfies was former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. 

During the slot when I interviewed him, he made some interesting comments about the Fianna Fáil family he has rejoined, following a period of estrangement.

He believes the next general election is not imminent and could be two years away.  Based on current trends, he expects Sinn Féin under Mary Lou Mc Donald to be returned as the largest party, maybe five points or more ahead of its nearest challenger. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil may look to put together a new coalition administration but could struggle to make up the numbers.

While the Fine Gael leader, Leo Varadkar, has stated that he would resign from the party rather than enter a coalition with Sinn Féin, former Taoiseach and former Fianna Fáil leader, Ahern would take a different view.

He would keep his options open – “we have moved on… at the next election we will be thirty years since the 1994 ceasefire… that’s a long time. If we were to back to 1921, that would mean 1951, that’s a long time”.

An expert at haggling and coalition-forming, Ahern would not be put off by the option of entering a partnership with Sinn Féin as a junior partner. 

“Ireland is a small country… the budget has to be made… If anyone tries to do anything mad, they won’t survive too long… The revolutionaries of today are usually the conservatives of tomorrow… I’ve watched people come into the Dáil over the years. They come in with all this ideology stuff. As soon as they’ve taken the facts of life, they become normal people.”

Sinn Féin may take comfort from the Ahern comments about future coalition arrangements. But his pragmatism delivered a sobering assessment of the prospects for Irish unity. He supports the concept of an agreed Ireland. He believes that achieving a practical, working model is “light years away”.

Much of Bertie Ahern’s time nowadays is spent engaging with unionism. He will be up north again this weekend. He is known and respected by the DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, and by his predecessor, Peter Robinson. His contacts extend to the Ulster Unionist party and to other elements of the loyalist support base.

Ahern was the Taoiseach who, in May 2007, walked down the marble staircase with British prime minister, Tony Blair, alongside a new power-sharing partnership: the DUP leader, Ian Paisley, and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness. He doesn’t expect the DUP will have completed all their agonising and reflection to allow for a full resumption of power-sharing during the Biden visit. 

Decades of grafting have taught Bertie to not put his faith in the perfect outcome.

*****

The DUP, however, is unable to prevent April from being an important month for Northern Ireland. Three governments and the European Commission are lined up to help Jeffrey Donaldson’s party extricate itself from problems of its own making. 

The wider family wants an end to the row. 

The Ireland Gateway to Europe trade mission and peace dinner was organised by Robert Mac Giolla Phadraig and his team in Sigmar Recruitment.