The next US presidential election will be critical for ensuring that the gains made so far in the peace process are "translated into a lasting peace for Ireland", a former US ambassador to the Vatican, Mr Ray Flynn, told the Ancient Order of Hibernians convention here.
Mr Flynn, who has also been a mayor of Boston, told the 1,500 delegates that Irish-American groups like the AOH "cannot become sideline players and allow ourselves to be taken for granted as we have in the past". They must stay organised from the grassroots level up and ensure that on key issues of principle and human rights "the White House and Congress stay responsive".
Mr Flynn said that when there was a transition from one administration to another, "that is when those in the US State Department bureaucracy who would like us to return to the days of following a totally pro-British line will seek to turn the clock back on the progress and the gains we have made".
President Clinton was the first president to make the resolution of the Northern conflict a top priority. "We know that there were those forces in the US State Department which sought to thwart that effort and which wanted to maintain the old bias towards Britain every step of the way."
Mr Flynn, who is running for the Congressional seat to be vacated by Mr Joe Kennedy in Boston, said that peace in Northern Ireland must not be seen as the absence of conflict but as the realisation of justice, equality and opportunity for all. "We must be committed to seeing that no nationalist community in Northern Ireland is subject to harassment by the bigots of the Orange Order ever again, or by threats of loyalist terrorists who burn down Catholic churches and murder children in their beds because they can no longer get their way."