Belfast Agreement is almost the only topic that can unite Democrats and Republicans

It was the ultimate Reunion Tour. Together they sat on stage at Queen’s University Belfast: Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair and former US president, Bill Clinton before an admiring, even adoring, audience.

For each, the previous few weeks had been a whirlwind, but it was clear, too, through endless interviews and talks, that the Belfast Agreement would stand tall in their memories near the end of days.

Clinton was not the only one to be emotional. The chairman of the talks that led to the agreement, Senator George Mitchell, was too. He had endured three years of treatment of leukaemia.

Despite this, Mitchell, who has visited Belfast “a hundred times, maybe more”, was determined to be in Belfast – a place that he has come to love despite a hundred reasons not to do so during endless talks in the mid-1990s.

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“I honestly don’t know if this is the last time that I will be here, but I told my wife on the way over, we have really got to enjoy this and take in the sights and sounds of this beautiful place,” he told one TV interviewer.

The emotions on display at the QUB Agreement25 conference remained indecipherable to British media, as had as the largely enjoyable schmaltz of President Joe Biden’s visit a week earlier.

[ Belfast Agreement a ‘model’ of peacebuilding for other global conflicts, Hillary Clinton says ]

However, emotions count in politics. Just after lunch on a wet Friday a week before St Patrick’s Day, Biden sat beside the fire in the Oval Office alongside European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

Having spoken about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and energy issues, Biden, unprompted, brought up the issue of Northern Ireland, an issue with which he has been involved for most of his political career.

Pointed reference

Thanking von der Leyen for her efforts to bring about the European Union/United Kingdom deal on the Windsor Framework, he pointedly referred to the Belfast Agreement.

“I think it has probably surprised a lot of Europeans how strongly so many Americans feel about that negotiated agreement,” he said, in a message that was meant for ears in London as much as at home.

Washington was not prepared to back London under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, or Rishi Sunak if actions by No 10 Downing Street put the Good Friday deal at risk; nor was a coveted trade deal a runner

Despite multiple other pressures over the past couple of years, Biden, as well as both Republican and Democrat politicians on Capitol Hill, has been determined that rows over the Northern Ireland protocol should not undermine the agreement.

Even if the United Kingdom’s “special relationship” with Washington is exaggerated, the UK remains one of the main allies of the United States on military and intelligence issues.

Nevertheless, Washington was not prepared to back London under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, or Rishi Sunak if actions by No 10 Downing Street put the Good Friday deal at risk; nor was a coveted trade deal a runner.

Irish influence in the US capital has come a long way.

Top Irish American politician Congressman Richie Neal remembers days when the Irish lobby faced US State Department obstructionism, which always insisted that Northern Ireland was an internal UK matter.

Clinton changed that, argues Neal.

The changing nature of the Irish American vote also have played a role. The Irish Catholic vote was traditionally seen to lean largely Democrat. Among Republicans, fewer were publicly interested in Irish affairs.

Shifting vote

However, as another Democrat on Capitol Hill, Bill Keating, acknowledged, the Irish vote has shifted towards the Republicans to some degree – bringing with it the connection to the old country.

All this has contributed to a vanishingly rare situation in a Washington riven by partisan politics: where the Northern Ireland peace deal enjoys supports across the aisle.

For Dr Kimberly Cowell-Meyers, an associate professor of government at the American University in Washington DC, the consensus is “remarkable” given the agreement’s close ties with both of the Clintons, Bill and Hillary.

One of the reasons for that, she says, that there “is not an English-American lobby or British-American lobby in the way that there is an Irish-American lobby, so there’s not really a counterpoint”.

However, support should not be taken for granted, she warns, pointing to the 2019 letter signed by 40 Republican senators congratulating Boris Johnson on his election: “There was no mention of Northern Ireland anywhere in the letter.”

[ When Irish ties are waning: Ireland's diplomatic struggle in the United States ]

Following the senators’ letter, Irish Americans “were much more careful” to ensure that Republican members of Congress were aware of the implications of Brexit for the Good Friday Belfast Agreement.

This “very deliberate, intentional cultivation” of both sides of the Congressional aisle is illustrated, she says, by the ad hoc committee for the protection of the Good Friday agreement, which is jointly chaired by a Republican and a Democrat.

Former New York Republican congressman Jim Walsh is one of the co-chairs. He became involved in Irish issues only after getting elected, even with Irish heritage on all sides of his family.

‘Greatest achievement’

The agreement is “the greatest American foreign policy achievement in 50 years”, he argues: “It may seem like an overstatement but, you know, thousands of people were killed.

“We helped and we played a role,” he says, “Our role was to shine a very bright international light [so] the British couldn’t walk away from it, the Irish couldn’t walk away from it, because the Americans were watching all the time.”

Though support comes from both sides of the aisle, the numbers of Republicans involved in Irish issues is dwarfed by the numbers of Democrats, which explains why Walsh has stayed involved after retirement.

Saying there always been an American position, not a Republican or Democrat one, he says: “Both see the benefit of engaging because it is popular with their constituents, so if you can do something that is popular, why the hell wouldn’t you?”

From Chicago, Democrat congressman Mike Quigley traces his Irish heritage back to the Famine. He grew up hearing about Northern Ireland from dinner table discussions encouraged by his father.

The relationship with Ireland is held dearly by 32 million, or more Irish Americans, regardless of political allegiance: “It always was. Those who grew up Republican had it and those who grew up Democrat had it.”

The key to getting support from Democrats and Republicans is ‘the simplicity of the issue involved – self-determination, parity of esteem, and respect for human rights’, says Ancient Order of Hibernians president, Daniel O’Connell

Speaking in Washington in late March, former US ambassador, Nancy Soderberg said much the same thing: the bipartisan consensus has held in the US because millions of Americans of Irish heritage take joy in it.

“It is a unifying principle. You have Republicans and Democrats, Protestants and Catholics, unionists and nationalists also melding here. When you have an Irish St Patrick’s Day parade, everybody goes.”

‘Human decency’

The oldest and largest Irish Catholic organisation in the United States is the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH). It has put renewed energy into Irish affairs, including the Good Friday accord and lobbying against British Troubles legacy proposals.

The key to getting support from Democrats and Republicans is “the simplicity of the issue involved – self-determination, parity of esteem, and respect for human rights”, says AOH president, Daniel O’Connell from Ohio.

“These are fundamental human values as well as American values. The asks of the Good Friday agreement are modest and grounded in human decency,” he tells The Irish Times.

“For 30 years, Americans were fatalistically told, particularly by the British media, that violence was endemic in Northern Ireland society. It was only possible to contain it; there was no resolving it,” he goes on.

Yet, through the efforts of George Mitchell as a mediator and the desire for peace in Northern Ireland, “the violence did end, and a previously undreamed peace has held for a quarter of a century. One can argue that the Good Friday agreement is arguably one of history’s great diplomatic successes, proof that negotiation and compromise can supplant violence.”

Mike Kelly, a Republican Pennsylvania congressman and the co-chair of the Congressional Friends of Ireland caucus, agrees, saying that “peace is possible after years of civil unrest”.

[ Fintan O’Toole: Shape of Belfast Agreement was in many respects as predictable as a rabbit in a magician’s hat ]

Massachusetts Democrat congressman, Bill Keating, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says he points to the Good Friday accord every time he is in the Middle East, or other places where people are losing hope.

“When [people say] there is no hope and things can’t be done, well, here is Exhibit A,” says Keating, though he adds that Washington itself does not understand the role played by the US.

“Unless you are listening to people from Ireland who say that US involvement in Northern Ireland was not just helpful, it was indispensable,” he says, “but I do not think the extent is fully understood by Irish-Americans.”

Shifting loyalties

Bipartisanship has survived shifting political loyalties among Irish-Americans: “A lot of people like me, whose grandparents or parents came from Ireland, in the early days they were very much Democrats,” he says.

In time, they supported Al Smith when he was the first Catholic to run for the White House, and later JFK, but now, many are Republicans: “My grandmother would be turning around and doing pinwheels in her grave. But it’s a reality.”