In April 2019 Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the United States House of Representatives, visited Ireland and Britain at the head of a congressional delegation. Its mission was to emphasise American concern at the threat to the peace settlement in Northern Ireland posed by the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. A second delegation, led by the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Richard Neal, followed in February 2022. And in May Pelosi repeated earlier warnings that Congress would punish any action that undermined the principles of the Belfast Agreement by vetoing a future free trade deal between Britain and the US.
Why is the UK’s much smaller neighbour able to call on such formidable American backing? The answer might at first sight seem obvious. The image of the Irish as supremely successful operators of the electoral system, particularly in the great cities of the east and mid-west, is part of American political folklore. But this is an image from the past. Suburbanisation long ago dispersed the tight-knit communities that supported the political machines of men like Chicago’s Richard Daly.
The strong party loyalties that gave coherence to the Irish vote have likewise disappeared. Conflicts over abortion, equal marriage, crime and race have driven a wedge between the Democratic party and its once loyal Irish Catholic supporters. To the more affluent, meanwhile, the Republican Party – business-friendly and tax-averse – has become increasingly attractive.
The collapse of traditional political alignments was obvious as early as the 1980s when Ronald Reagan captured more than half of the Irish-American vote. During the Democratic Party primaries in 2008 neither Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were willing to commit themselves to offering special treatment to undocumented Irish immigrants. Obama also refused an invitation to attend the Irish-American Presidential Forum, a regular pilgrimage from 1984 for contenders for the Democratic nomination, and the venue at which Bill Clinton first committed himself to an activist policy on Northern Ireland.
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More recently this erosion of the Irish-Democrat alliance has been partially obscured. President Joe Biden has made what he presents as his Irishness – he also has significant English ancestry – a key feature of his political persona. During the presidential election of 2020 his team reportedly combed lists of voters in swing districts picking out Irish surnames for particular attention. But Biden was born in 1942, coming of age in an America where Irish and Democrat were still all but synonymous.
Nor is he the only one who can be seen as carrying forward attitudes formed in an earlier era. The average age of the delegation that Pelosi led to Ireland in 2019 was over 60.
Beyond the diminishing influence of party and family allegiances, however, there are other reasons for the continuing commitment of American politicians to Irish concerns. Prestige is one consideration. In a succession of inglorious episodes the establishment of a political settlement in Northern Ireland stands out as a rare American diplomatic success.
But there is also something less tangible: a form of soft power that allows Irish lobbyists to secure a hearing that representatives of other small countries could never hope to receive.
A favourable disposition towards Irish requests is in part a legacy of the deep cultural footprint created by successive generations of Irish immigrants, reinforced in recent decades by a spectacular process of reinvention. The earliest Irish immigrants to the United States encountered ethnic and religious hostility, discrimination and, on occasion, violence. By the mid-20th century, however, the Irish had become America’s favourite ethnic group. The stereotyped Irishman might still like a drink and, in some versions, a good bout of fisticuffs. But he was warm-hearted, generous and above all fun to be with.
In more recent decades what was already a largely benign image of Irishness has undergone a further transformation. The origins of the process can be traced back to the 1960s. By then consumers in America and elsewhere were seeking an alternative to the bland uniformity of a society of mass consumption in supposedly more authentic ethnic cultures. Ireland, with a marketable heritage, reassuringly rooted in a well-advertised, if tragic history, and largely accessible through the English language, was well placed to respond. It was against this background that the Clancy Brothers, attired in their trademark Aran sweaters but with a musical style honed in the Greenwich Village of Pete Seeger and the young Joan Baez, made their breakthrough appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1961.
The real change, however, came in the 1990s as a spectacular burst of economic growth gave Irishness a new glamour and a brash self-confidence. This was the decade in which the Riverdance ensemble adapted the country’s distinctive and highly specialised style of traditional dance to the demands of the MTV age. It was also the decade in which a new cultural artefact, the Irish pub, made its appearance in cities across the world.
The image of Irishness that was thus projected on the international stage was a startling reinvention. The founders of the Irish State established in 1922 were inspired by the vision of a pious, puritanical society to be protected from corrupting foreign influences. The image summed up in the Irish pub, by contrast, is of a confident, secular society, at ease in its interactions with the outside world, characterised above all by a genial secular hedonism. And, as a synthesised authenticity perfectly aligned to modern tastes, brand Ireland has proved a hugely successful product.
This does not mean, however, that the access Irish representatives currently enjoy in the US can be taken for granted. A positive international image, and the legacy of past political alignments, can go only so far in influencing the decisions of a superpower. An awareness of the fragility of their privileged position was evident in the frantic efforts of Irish diplomats to secure a commitment from the Trump administration that the annual St Patrick’s Day pilgrimage to Washington of senior Irish politicians would remain a significant event in the White House calendar.
The same underlying insecurity inspired earlier attempts to persuade the Obama administration to continue the practice of appointing a special envoy for Northern Ireland. Ten years on from the cessation of violence, the Irish ambassador admitted to Obama aide Trina Vargo there was no obvious need for an envoy. But “it made them feel special”.
There is one other point to consider. From the 1920s onwards Democratic politicians in particular kept their Irish constituents happy by regularly denouncing continued British rule over Northern Ireland. For Frank Skeffington, the old-style political boss of Edwin O’Connor’s classic novel of machine politics The Last Hurrah (1958), foreign policy boiled down to two clear principles: Trieste belonged to Italy and Ireland should be united.
What is less often noticed is how little practical impact these ritual protests achieved. In 1950, for example, the Truman administration, with mid-term elections approaching, allowed the House of Representatives to pass a grandstanding amendment to a foreign aid bill denying Marshall Aid to Britain until partition ended. But there was no question of the administration inflicting this sort of damage on its main Cold War ally. Ancestral honour satisfied, the amendment was quietly killed off in committee.
In the 1990s all this changed. For President Bill Clinton intervention in Northern Ireland was an attractive option, following a string of foreign policy missteps. But he was able to seize this opportunity only because the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that British opposition to this intrusion could be more easily discounted.
Recent events suggest that that foreign policy calculation is in the process of being reviewed. As the reinvigoration of Nato in the face of Russian aggression becomes a priority, the first suggestions are being heard that a British-American trade deal will not after all depend on a satisfactory resolution of differences over the Northern Ireland protocol. If the world’s progress towards a new Cold War continues, the softness of Irish soft power may quickly become obvious.
Sean Connolly is professor of Irish history (emeritus) and visiting research fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast. His latest book, On Every Tide, The Making and Remaking of the Irish World, is published by Little, Brown on September 1st.