The new British ambassador, Ivor Roberts, earlier this week got a taste of the networking that makes the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body such an asset to east/west relations and reason why its members want to keep it alive now that new North/South groups and the rise of the Celtic fringe threaten its existence. As an observer, Roberts attended the meeting at Dromoland Castle, where the principal speaker was the Minister for Justice, John O'Donoghue, and met members of the Body, from the two houses at Westminster and Leinster House, the civil servants and, dare Quidnunc say, the hacks who attend the twice-yearly gathering.
Members speak vehemently of the barriers that have been broken down at the Body, the prejudices banished and understandings commenced. Indeed in recent years members of the Federation of Irish Societies in Britain, Seamus McGarry and Michael Forde, have attended for the access it gives them to politicians from both jurisdictions.
The two-day meeting was not all work. There was whiskey tasting on Monday evening, a spouses' tour to local places of interest, and two magnificent dinners. On Monday night there were speeches. The Irish co-chairman Michael O'Kennedy spoke of the ambassador's great-grandparents hailing from Waterford, of William Smith O'Brien MP for Co Clare having been born in Dromoland, and of the historic grievances - i.e. Cheltenham the previous week. The British cochairman, Labour MP David Winnick spoke movingly of how he first came to Ireland when he was 15 to work backstage at the Gate Theatre, was interviewed by Micheal Mac Liammoir and Hilton Edwards, and later of how he got a job in an estate agency. He didn't know much about that, but he knew about Irish history and even read John Mitchel's prison diaries. Having been treated so well in the 1950s, he said, he spent almost every Christmas in Dublin and he hoped now as a humble backbencher that he could bring about a better relationship and continuing friendship between the two countries.
Not for the first time, the counsellor at the Irish Embassy in London Philip McDonagh performed his famous commentary of Dawn Run's win at Cheltenham in 1986. Factionalism broke out and the climax brought the house down.