US: The former US ambassador to Ireland, Mr Richard Egan, yesterday characterised his first year in Ireland as "interesting", but said the second year was "very, very boring". He made his feelings known to a gathering of Irish-American Republicans meeting on the fringes of the Republican Convention in New York, writes Conor O'Clery
Considering his experience there, "anybody with aspirations for the job should think twice", said the billionaire co-founder of Massachusetts-based computer storage firm EMC.
What did he mean by "boring", I asked him afterwards.
Had it anything to do with his departure from Ireland early at the end of 2003, leaving the post unoccupied for almost a year?
"Don't get me wrong," said Mr Egan. He said he was comparing his second year with his first, which was "so exciting" because of the aftermath of September 11th and Ireland taking a seat at the UN Security Council.
He said he had left Dublin early to help the Bush re-election campaign. Since then Mr Egan has earned the title of Bush "ranger", a supporter who has raised more than $200,000 (€164,022) for the Bush-Cheney ticket. He is actually a "super-Ranger", he said.
Staunch Republicans, both American and Irish kind, took the microphone at the Tuesday evening event, held in a marquee at the Irish Famine Memorial in Battery Park City.
Shortly after Mr Egan spoke, former INLA man Malachy McAllister made an impassioned plea for Irish-American Republicans to lobby the Bush administration to suspend a deportation case against his family.
"I have known the fear of a gun held to my head and forced to leave my job because of my religion," said Mr McAllister, who fled to Canada and then to the US in the mid-1990s after a gun attack on his home by loyalist paramilitaries.
He now has a business in New Jersey and is fighting a case for deportation brought by the Department of Homeland Security.
In the Clinton administration similar cases involving threatened deportation were resolved at the request of leading Irish-Americans.
Mr McAllister served three years in prison in Northern Ireland for his part in an unsuccessful plot to kill two RUC men, but has put his paramilitary involvement behind him. "I am not a terrorist, I am a family man," said Mr McAllister, a father of four whose 46-year-old wife Bernadette died of cancer in May.
Among the prominent American Republicans speakers was Mr Ed Gillespie, the powerful chair of the Republican National Committee and organiser of the convention, whose father emigrated from Donegal.
"Use your Irish charm to get the votes out for President Bush," he urged the Irish-Americans drinking beer and nibbling strawberries and cheese, many of whom were actually invited Democrats.
Irish ambassador to the US Mr Noel Fahy told the gathering, diplomatically, that both the Republican and Democratic parties had played a prominent role in achieving the IRA ceasefire 10 years ago, and deserved credit for developing the peace process and strengthening business ties.