IT WASN’T quite the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia, but yesterday’s inaugural meeting of the Irish American Leadership Council had something of the majesty of great occasions.
The meeting was convened at the American Irish Historical Society, a mansion built in 1900 on 5th Avenue, opposite the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Purchased by wealthy Irish-Americans for a song in the depths of the Depression, the building speaks not of starving, huddled masses, but of pride and wealth accumulated.
It was a setting from an Edith Wharton novel: all parquet floors, stucco mouldings, oil paintings and crystal chandeliers. Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin sat at the head of a long, white, linen-covered table, flanked by Ambassador Michael Collins and Consul General Niall Burgess.
“This is a historic event in a historic place,” Mr Martin said. “This is the first time we have brought all Irish leadership in the US together. This is an event of some significance.”
The council grew out of the strategic review of the US-Irish relationship which the Taoiseach commissioned from the Irish Embassy in Washington, under Mr Collins’s supervision.
Nearly 40 people attended the inaugural session of the council, about a half dozen of them women. Some spoke with Irish accents, others American. They had come from as far away as Illinois, Georgia and California.
There were the usual vestimentary signs of Irishness: Claddagh rings, a Celtic-design scarf, a green silk tie. Moreover, old Ireland (the Ancient order of Hibernians, the Irish Apostolate USA) seemed to blend effortlessly with new Ireland (BioLink USA-Ireland, the youthful IN-NYC). Forget about “Irish exiles” and “Irish diaspora”. Today, as Mr Martin keeps telling US audiences, we’re all part of one big global Irish family.
“All of us have seen other initiatives die for lack of follow-up,” one participant worried. Fear not, replied Mr Martin. “The embassy is the secretariat. But I don’t want to be too pre-emptive. You are the members of the council.”
Kieran McLoughlin of the American Ireland Fund emphasised the “need to integrate the next generation” of Irish-Americans. “The pacemakers are well-educated. They lead international lifestyles and have lots of choices. We have to work hard to make their Irish identity attractive to them,” he said.
Scholarships were the best way to “convert them to Irishness”, suggested Jim Lambe from Pittsburgh.
Aidan Connolly, head of the Irish Arts Centre, spoke of culture as the “next frontier in Irish-American relations . . . We need to reach out to those who are culturally voracious for what we have to offer – for example Harlem, the museum of Jewish heritage . . .”
Earlier, Mr Burgess hosted breakfast for the business community in Ireland House on Park Avenue – not, as you might think from the name, an inviting cottage, but the 17th floor of a skyscraper. Mr Burgess started on an upbeat note: the technology sector on the rebound; high quarterly returns for Intel, IBM and Google; big salaries at Goldman Sachs.
Despite the “difficult budget ahead in December”, Mr Martin said, “we are starting to see the first signs of a turnaround”: Irish labour costs 7 per cent less than European competitors; exports are resilient; the current account will move into surplus next year – all part of the Government’s “vision of a smart, green, high-value, export-led economy”.