If you want to watch an Irish-American's eyes glaze over, start telling them what a nefarious influence Sinn Féin represents in the Irish body politic and go on to list the ways in which the party doesn't share mainstream American values. That glazed look fell over an entire dinner table in Washington a few weeks ago when a prominent visitor from Dublin launched into a detailed exposition of the latest Sinn Féin outrage – opposition to water charges. "We don't know anything about your water pipes," one leading Irish-American snapped later. "And we're not interested."
Sniping about Sinn Féin strikes many Americans not just as parochial but also as condescending, implying that US support for the party is rooted in ignorance or a lack of sophistication. And grumbling about its fundraising success sounds to most American ears like nothing more than sour grapes.
Sinn Féin's fundraising in the US is legal and above board, even if the scale of it, as documented by Pamela Duncan and Simon Carswell in The Irish Times this week, came as a surprise to most people in Ireland. Sinn Féin has sought to dismiss the story, telling us to move along swiftly because there's nothing to see and suggesting that all the information was freely available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. But while each individual filing by Friends of Sinn Féin can be viewed on the US Department of Justice website, it took an analysis of 14,879 data entries to produce a clear picture of the cumulative sums given by individual donors and how various economic sectors are represented among the donors. The picture that emerges is of a highly professional fundraising operation and a vast and diverse donor base that reflects Sinn Féin's appeal among Irish-Americans of all social classes. The party has retained its support among traditional Irish communities and within organisations such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the county associations, as well as in the trade union movement. But it is also popular among Irish-American professionals and business people and among more recent Irish immigrants and it appeals to both Democrats and Republicans.
Defiance
Sympathy for Sinn Féin within the American political elite has grown steadily since President Bill Clinton’s decision to grant
Gerry Adams
a visa to visit the US in 1994, against the advice of the
State Department
and in defiance of the British government. Clinton and his supporters in Irish America believe that decision was vindicated by subsequent events in
Northern Ireland
and that Adams deserves credit for leading the republican movement away from violence. For the political leaders of Irish America, the Adams visa had a domestic political significance too, as evidence that Irish-Americans were now sufficiently influential to persuade a US president to take such a diplomatic step. The Irish-American leadership in
Congress
perceives Sinn Féin as having delivered on the most important demands made of it – disarming and disbanding the IRA, entering the Executive in the North and making the compromises necessary to share power with the DUP.
Much of the commentary on Sinn Féin’s US fundraising this week has focused on the financial edge it might give the party in Ireland. Although none of the money raised in the US comes directly to the Republic, some of it is used to pay bills for the party in the North. Given the all-island structure of Sinn Féin, this subsidy could in theory free up resources for use in political campaigns in both jurisdictions, although the impact is likely to be modest.
Most of the money raised is spent within the US and the most important advantage Friends of Sinn Féin offers the party is in building a network of support that could influence US policy towards Ireland in the future. And despite the best efforts of the Government and the Irish embassy and consulates general in the US, Sinn Féin is well placed to capitalise on next year’s centenary commemorations of the Easter Rising throughout America.
If other Irish political parties are looking for someone to blame for Sinn Féin's success in the US, they should look no further than themselves. Other parties have raised money in America and Fianna Fáil once had a huge network of donors across the US. Scandals surrounding Charles J Haughey's personal finances reinforced doubts among some American Fianna Fáil donors about how effectively their money was being used, however, and the donations petered out more than a decade ago.
Rhetoric
Many leading Irish-Americans have sought over the years to help the SDLP establish a presence in the US to rival that of Sinn Féin. None had any significant impact and the most recent effort, led by Denis O’Brien and Paddy McKillen with an impressive offer of $750,000 over three years, was abandoned by the SDLP in 2009 after two years, when just $400,000 of the offered funds had been drawn down. No other Irish political parties have made significant or sustained efforts to establish a presence in the US.
Sinn Féin’s American donors demand little in return and few seek to influence the party’s policies in Ireland. Some of its American business supporters would, however, like to see the party shed some of its leftish rhetoric and embrace more robustly pro-business economic policies. If Sinn Féin succeeds in its stated ambition of leading a left of centre government in the Republic, it may have to choose between pleasing its donors and keeping faith with its voters.
Denis Staunton is Deputy Editor