Varadkar, Martin and McDonald among many visiting Joe Biden and other key US players in traditional leveraging of our national identity
Exactly how reassuring Americans found the Minister for Education is not recorded. But it was a sign that the Irish invasion was well under way. It’s St Patrick’s week again in the United States.
There was even a meeting of whiskey manufacturers in the White House. The Irish Whiskey Association, as well as representatives of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States held talks with senior staff of the Biden administration. Slainte! UK ambassador Karen Pierce held a breakfast reception on St Patrick’s Day just down the road from where Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was meeting Kamala Harris. Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton Harris was also in town for several days and attended the Ireland Fund dinner, while the leaders of all the main parties in Northern Ireland, including DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson and Doug Beattie of the Ulster Unionists, were in Washington for the first time in a number of years.
There was much speculation about what Donaldson, would make of the speech. Not a lot, apparently. The DUP leader was put under pressure all week to accept the Windsor declaration and agree to revive the power-sharing institutions, but he was not – yet anyway – for turning; he gave a combative speech at the National Press Club on Wednesday, insisting that further changes to the Northern Ireland protocol are necessary to secure unionist consent.
Irish officials were happier with the speech by Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, the Republican congressman who replaced Nancy Pelosi in the powerful position following November’s mid-term elections. Pelosi had been an important Irish ally; McCarthy sounded like he’d be just as staunch. Varadkar told The Irish Times he would be inviting McCarthy to visit Ireland.
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