Mr Varadkar goes to Washington: Is the Taoiseach’s St Patrick’s Day trip to the US really worth it?

If you’re Irish, come into the parlour – and the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room and the Lincoln Bedroom.

If the weather is blustery and changeable, then it must be St Patrick’s Day and with the traditional diplomatic raid on Washington DC comes the usual agonising over whether or not the tradition has reached its sell-by date.

“How many different ways can you accept a bowl of shamrocks, or celebrate the sterling qualities of the noble Irish people?” former George W Bush speech writer Matthew Scully despaired in a lighthearted New York Times piece in 2005.

It seemed a reasonable question then and is just as reasonable to those who regard the entire charade with a cynical or dubious eye.

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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar flies out to the US on Monday for the first engagement of his annual St Patrick’s Day visit: an event at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum in Boston that evening.

‘I would much rather the Taoiseach and ministers flew business class and had a good’s night sleep and were effective lobbyists rather than if they flew economy and were wrecked’

—  Brendan O’Leary, Lauder professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania

He moves on to Washington DC on Wednesday and, on Friday, will have his Oval Office meeting with US president Joe Biden at the White House before heading to Capitol Hill to rub shoulders with the president and US congressional leaders, a rare occasion in Washington’s political calendar when Democrats and Republicans mix socially. Varadkar will return to the White House on Sunday, St Patrick’s Day, for the more informal shamrock ceremony.

[ White House confirms Biden-Varadkar meeting next week after Taoiseach says it would be ‘big mistake’ to boycott ]

Calls in Ireland for the Government to skip this year’s event as a gesture of protest over the situation in Gaza, which has been subjected to a months-long military attack by US ally Israel, have been ignored.

And there are the usual grumblings about the expense of flying the Taoiseach and travelling party across the Atlantic for what from a transatlantic distance can look like a fireside chuckle.

“That kind of utter small-mindedness I have no time for,” says Brendan O’Leary, Lauder professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I would much rather the Taoiseach and ministers flew business class and had a good’s night sleep and were effective lobbyists rather than if they flew economy and were wrecked. I think Ireland vastly underestimates the cheapness of effective access to the greatest power on Earth.

“Whether you like that power or not is immaterial. If you are a small country, you have to deal with the fact that the United States is the greatest single power on Earth and the fact that we have influence and a set of politicians who are willing to listen to our interests is just remarkable. It should never be neglected or underestimated in its importance.”

O’Leary points to how the British “did not understand” how Democratic congressman Richie Neal of Massachusetts, a co-chair of the Congressional Friends of Ireland caucus, was a “key player in Congress” and how Ireland’s close diplomatic ties with the US were “very evident” during the Brexit controversy.

“No trade agreement can be made without his say-so,” said the academic of the US congressman.

‘I was surprised in a positive way by the extent to which Irish Americans have this connection to Ireland and by their affinity with us. Of course, there is no guarantee it goes on forever, but I am impressed by the extent to which people still have that grá for Ireland’

—  Dan Mulhall, Ireland's former US ambassador

Ireland’s phenomenal annual access to the White House is at least in part a consequence of the historical precedent which saw the Irish establish themselves as what O’Leary terms “the best organised ethnic group in the United States at pursuing ethnic agenda questions”.

When Dan Mulhall was appointed Irish ambassador to the US, he had plenty of people assuring him that the Irish-American tradition was “a wasting asset”, that the story was in decline.

“And I didn’t find that at all,” he says now.

“I was surprised in a positive way by the extent to which Irish Americans have this connection to Ireland and by their affinity with us. Of course, there is no guarantee it goes on forever, but I am impressed by the extent to which people still have that grá for Ireland. So those who are cynical, I feel, are getting it wrong.

He thinks it would be “very foolish to spurn” the opportunity and is “delighted” that the Government has “ignored these calls to give a wide berth to Washington over Gaza”.

Mulhall’s first St Patrick’s Day in Washington involved a visit to the then president Donald Trump, whose administration was full of officials who identified as Irish American. They included Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president who had two grandparents born in Ireland.

The style and theme of Irish-American politics now dominate American politics. Rival Irish Americans even sometimes express their political differences in a parallel row over authentic Irishness. The Catholic overseers of the St Patrick’s Day parade in New York barred gay Irish Americans until recently. Progressive Irish Americans hammer restrictionists such as Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, for betraying their migrant history. This might be considered the final stage of the Irish triumph in America; the blarneyfication of its democracy.

[ Full list of destinations for Ministers’ St Patrick’s Day trips published ]

It could be argued that the origins of the White House presentation are a happy crash. The presentation of the cluster of shamrock was initiated by ambassador John Hearne, who delivered a box rather than the crystal bowl, for then president Harry Truman. That year, Truman was not at the White House but was appreciative of the gesture. In 1948, Truman was the first US president to attend the St Patrick’s Day parade in New York. And it started something.

“I don’t want to say it fell into their lap because they came up with the idea,” Dr John Gibney of the Royal Irish Academy and an editor on the RIA’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series.

“It didn’t start in 1952: St. Patrick’s Day was always the national day, and it was always part of their calendar and it seemed to build through incremental steps and Hearne giving the bowl set a precedent.”

Some presidents, most notably Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Biden, always exhibited a strong personal pride in their Irish connection. Biden wears his affection for and fascination with Ireland as a badge of honour

Dr Gibney said that by the time John F Kennedy was in the White House, St Patrick’s Day was “a fixture” in the presidential calendar.

By the 1990s, Irish ambassador Dermot Gallagher was sufficiently in tune with the importance of the occasion that he held the view that the White House presentation should be made by the Taoiseach and suggested this to Albert Reynolds, which established a precedent.

Some presidents, most notably Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Biden, always exhibited a strong personal pride in their Irish connection. Biden wears his affection for and fascination with Ireland as a badge of honour.

The annual meeting of taoiseach and president in the White House stands as a crossing point between historical and familial connections. It captures the oft told, dewy eyed tale of the Irish in America, the practical and mutual benefits of American investment in Ireland and, more recently, of Irish investment in US business. As an ethnic group, Irish America remains potent and significant to the political interests of both countries. Plus, it has always been a terrific spot for a good old-fashioned whip-round.

“The story Conor O’Clery tells in The Greening of the White House – that Irish Americans are now, on average, rich – is broadly true,” says Brendan O’Leary.

“The wealth of Irish America is extraordinary. And if it can be tapped for pro-Irish purposes, that’s very useful.”

He notes that it was once the case that Fianna Fáil was the richest Irish party because of the party’s friends in the United States but suspects that this “has long been superseded by Friends of Sinn Féin”.

“So, Irish America has always mattered to Irish political parties, and it remains significant today,” says O’Leary.

“The truth is that Ireland, along with Israel, has a remarkable special relationship with the United States for what is a tiny country. It is an amazing phenomenon that an American president would set this time aside for a tiny country.”

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