Jokes and Guinness flow freely at reunion of 'dear and steadfast friends'

‘I GIVE my word to you, Mr Prime Minister, and to the people of Ireland,” US president Barack Obama pledged at the White House reception honouring Enda and Fionnuala Kenny, “as long as I am president, you will have a strong friend, a steadfast ally and a faithful partner in the United States of America.”

For the first time in decades, the Irish Tricolour hung over Blair House, the guest mansion across the street where the Taoiseach, Mrs Kenny and the Irish delegation slept. Official Washington had devoted most of Tuesday to Ireland. It all ended with a bash for hundreds in the White House.

Jean Kennedy Smith, a former ambassador to Dublin, has lost count of the number of St Patrick’s Day festivals at the White House she’s attended. “They’re all the same; all very jolly,” she said. This one was particularly warm and fuzzy: economic gloom seems to be lifting in both countries, the Obamas’ memories of their trip to Ireland are fresh and Enda Kenny’s confident optimism bowled over his American hosts.

Maryland governor Martin O’Malley’s Celtic rock band blasted away in the East Room, where the jokes and Guinness flowed freely. “As you may have noticed,” Mr Obama began his speech, “today is not, in fact, St Patrick’s Day. We just wanted to prove that America considers Ireland a dear and steadfast friend every day of the year.”

The president again called his trip to Ireland “magical” and quoted John F Kennedy: “It is strange that so many years and so many generations pass, and still some of us who come on this trip could feel ourselves among neighbours, even though we are separated by generations, by time and by thousands of miles.”

Obama promised that “the green strands of affection” that Irish immigrants “have woven into America’s heart . . . will never fray, nor will they come undone”.

Kenny’s speech was a meditation on the theme of emigration. Some 80,000 Irish souls were lost in the Atlantic, he said. “While their fellow arrivals saw emigration as an opportunity, for the Irish it was always a tragedy.” That sadness “makes the Irish and what they did for America all the more heroic, all the more remarkable, all the more noble”.

Kenny unveiled a large, gold-framed certificate of Irish heritage in the president’s name. The president and his wife, Michelle, exchanged an amused, touched glance. “This will have a special place of honour alongside my birth certificate,” Mr Obama joked, alluding to false claims that he was not born in the US. The crowd erupted in cheers and laughter.

Rosalie Cox (64), a hospital administrator, was invited to the reception because her parents were born in Mayo and she holds dual nationality. The first she learned of Enda Kenny was from a CBS 60 Minutes documentary about the Catholic Church and child abuse, broadcast earlier this month. The Taoiseach’s speech on the subject last summer was “marvellous”, Mrs Cox said.

Lieut Gen Seán McCann, the Irish Defence Forces’ Chief of Staff, stood out in his olive green uniform covered with medals. A veteran of six overseas deployments, he was delighted Obama praised Irish peacekeepers. “It’s a great tribute to us that he would recognise it,” he said.

Obama again mentioned Henry Healy and Ollie Hayes, his eighth cousin and “favourite pub keeper”. Hayes “was interested in hiring Michelle when she was pouring a pint,” Barack Obama recounted to laughter. “I said, ‘she’s too busy – maybe at the end of our second term’.”

Healy and Hayes were invited to have a private photograph taken with the president and first lady before the reception. “We’ll be bringing our daughters. They have to see Moneygall,” Obama told them.

In Washington, “Henry VIII” was almost as famous as the Taoiseach, whom he met at the American Ireland Fund gala. “I’ve been rubbing shoulders with a powerful amount of Irish Americans,” Healy observed good-naturedly. Would this trip change his life, I asked the 27-year-old plumbing company accountant. “It’s not going to change my life. I don’t want it to change my life,” he laughed. “I’ll still be the same Henry Healy.”