THE AMERICAN Ireland Fund (AIF) has raised $3 million (€2.3 million) for Irish causes at a gala dinner for 1,300 people at New York’s Lincoln Center.
The two biggest recipients of the funds will be a national music education programme for Ireland, whose goal is to make musical education more freely available to Irish children, and Forgotten Irish, which helps elderly Irish immigrants in New York.
In his address at the event on Thursday night, former US president Bill Clinton expressed admiration for U2’s Bono as a humanitarian and activist, and praised the AIF as a model for organising diasporas with philanthropic aims.
Mr Clinton also described the Northern Ireland peace process as the most satisfying achievement of his presidency.
Bono returned the compliment, saying he admired Mr Clinton as a great humanitarian. He praised the late Senator Ted Kennedy for his work in the peace process, and spoke of the spiritual link between Ireland and America.
U2 has already committed $7 million to the music programme, in which U2, the AIF and Music Network, an arm of the Arts Council, are partners.
“As a band we believe music tuition should be available to anyone who wants it,” Bono said.
Kieran McLoughlin, the president of the AIF, described the dinner, where each table of 10 to 12 people raised between $10,000 and $100,000, as “a blockbuster”.
Other guests included New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Speaker of New York City Council Christine Quinn and Congressman Joe Crowley.
The music programme received $500,000 from Dow Chemical Company, a $58 billion corporation whose chief executive, Andrew Liveris, received the AIF’s Leslie C Quick Jr Leadership Award.
The AIF is set to contribute a further $2.5 million to the music programme over the next two years.
Loretta Brennan Glucksman, chairwoman of the AIF, said the organisation considers two key priorities for funding: education and culture. “The music tuition programme meets both these criteria,” she added.
A study commissioned by the Arts Council and Department of Education in 2001 found that only 1 per cent of Irish secondary school students had access to music tuition, compared to a European average of 6-8 per cent.
Dr Tony Ó Dálaigh, an arts consultant and board member of St Patrick’s Festival and the Gaiety School of Acting, will chair the music programme.
Rosaleen Molloy, who earned degrees in music and education at University College Cork and has worked for 15 years in music education, has been appointed to extend the programme throughout Ireland.
The Forgotten Irish project received $200,000, which will be shared by Irish community centres that work with isolated, elderly Irish people in the boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Mr McLoughlin said: “Many of us stand on their shoulders. This is a way of giving back.”