ON ST Patrick's Day, every American wants to be Irish "whether we actually are or not", US president Barack Obama told the Friends of Ireland Luncheon in the House of Representatives yesterday, writes LARA MARLOWEin Washington
Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland had just sung Amhrán na bhFiann, with the Taoiseach and Ministers Micheál Martin and Mary Hanafin singing along.
Mr Obama was in deadpan stand-up comic mode, which he plays to perfection, to make his claim to Irish lineage.
“I’ve got the Taoiseach here to vouch for me,” the president insisted, reminding us that an ancestor on his mother’s side was traced to Brian Cowen’s home county of Offaly. “My first thought was, ‘Why didn’t anyone discover this when I was running for office in Chicago?’ I would have gotten here sooner.”
The sun shone and a sense of completion prevailed throughout the Taoiseach’s visit.
Referring to the vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly last week, Mr Cowen told 50 people at vice-president Joe Biden’s breakfast that “the last piece of the jigsaw is in place”. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton concluded her remarks at the American Ireland Fund dinner on Tuesday night: “We can say peace has come once and for all to Northern Ireland.”
Irish ambassadors and taoisigh have brought shamrock to the White House in a crystal bowl for the past 58 years. At the ceremony scheduled to take place last night, Mr Cowen was to promise Mr Obama a welcome “equally warm” as that given to President Kennedy in 1963, “especially in Co Offaly, where I have some influence”, according to an advance copy of his remarks.
The Taoiseach bore other gifts. WB Yeats is one of the president’s favourite poets, so the Irish leader brought him a 1912 two-volume edition of Yeats’s poetry and plays. There was Irish linen for the First Lady, and – an innovation – soil from Co Offaly, cleared by the US department of agriculture, in which to plant shamrock in the White House children’s garden.
To hear the declarations of gratitude from Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton, you might think that Ireland has several divisions in Afghanistan and had taken in the entire population of Guantánamo prison. Ireland has seven soldiers and one garda in Afghanistan at present, and is expected to send four more gardaí to assist with police training.
In his remarks in the Oval Office, with Mr Cowen seated beside him, the president also thanked Ireland for the use of Shannon airport for military flights. The Taoiseach called Mr Obama “the leader of the free world” and promised: “We will always be supportive of the very progressive stands and positions that President Obama has taken.”
Of the millions of Americans yearning to be Irish, vice- president Joe Biden seemed to want it most. The first Catholic Irish-American vice-president yesterday added breakfast at his residence to the Taoiseach’s White House and Capitol Hill itinerary. Mr Biden spoke of his mother, Jean Finnegan Biden, who died in January, as the “quintessential Irish-American”. Looking heavenward, he announced, “Mom, I’m being good and I got the Taoiseach!”
Every speaker at the breakfast and lunch paid homage to the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who loved St Patrick’s Day. His widow Vicky, daughter Kara and son Patrick appeared moved. Kennedy was of the old school of US politicians, who believed that Republicans and Democrats “could be friends after six o’clock” – a phrase borrowed from the late Ronald Reagan by Mr Obama yesterday.
United by affection for Ireland, politicians who are now at loggerheads over the imminent vote on healthcare reform set aside their differences.
In this critical week, with the healthcare vote looming, it was amazing that the president and speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, set aside several hours to spend with Mr Cowen. The Taoiseach got his best laugh when he told the president, Ms Pelosi and congressmen: “We heard that it was a quiet week for business on the Hill, so we thought it would be a good time to visit!”
As the Irish press corps filed out of the Oval Office, several journalists tried to entice the US president into a pact with St Patrick. “If St Patrick got you the healthcare vote, would you come to Ireland?” asked Charlie Bird of RTÉ.
“Do you have a vote in the House?” the president responded.