UCC CONFERENCE:EARLY IRISH emigrants to the US put extraordinary portions of their incomes into savings banks, according to a leading Irish historian.
The phenomenon was born out of insecurity, Prof Joe Lee told a conference on the history of Irish foreign affairs at University College Cork.
Records from the Emigrant Savings Bank in New York, an Irish institution founded in the 1850s, provide an insight into the saving habits of the Irish diaspora, with valuable details such as dates of arrival and townlands of origin, Prof Lee said.
A former head of the history department at UCC, Prof Lee is director of the Glucksman Ireland House at New York University.
At Saturday’s conference, he traced the US intervention in the Northern Ireland peace process back to highly mobilised and politically skilled immigrant communities in the US in the 19th century.
“Irish emigrants craved security. Safe jobs meant public jobs and to control those you have to run the political machines, and to do that you have to win votes,” Prof Lee said.
The mindset that saw “gross oversaving” in banks combined with expertise in building successful political movements became the foundation blocks for a future of disproportionate Irish power in US politics.
“Their skill was in political organisation, which they learned uniquely here in Ireland. When they struck the US, they struck the one country in the world where those skills were enabled – allowing them to punch way above their political weight,” he said.
The Irish formed the second largest group of immigrants into the US in the 19th century, after Germany, though the latter failed to win the political influence garnered by the Irish.
Bill Clinton’s uptake of the Northern Ireland issue on his ascension to the US presidency in 1992 was the result of “remarkable” efforts by politicians sympathetic to the Irish cause, who argued their position with skill and determination, Prof Lee said.
“Clinton was able to look at both sides. He was a superb compromise politician and he became emotionally involved.”
The decision to grant Gerry Adams a US visa in 1994 was Clinton’s personal crusade, according to Prof Lee. It was a decision that sparked outrage in Downing Street, British diplomat Sir John Holmes testified in his address to the UCC conference.
He attributed the success of the peace process to Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, who “saw eye to eye in many ways”.