Inside Files: President or King George?

By Ray O’Hanlon

Concern has been expressed over the apparent revival of the special relationship between Washington and London and its possible negative influence over Washington’s dealings with Ireland.

Ronan Fanning is an erudite historian at University College Dublin. He also pens a column for the Sunday Independent. Fanning was evidently watching President Bush closely in the days before and during his recent visit to Britain. And he didn’t care too much for what he heard. Regarding Bush’s pre-visit remarks on the North, Fanning had this to say: "Although the President set his remarks in the Oval Office on the eve of his visit to Britain in the context of his support for the Governments both of Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair in their endeavor to implement the Good Friday agreement, that was no more than a cursory genuflection toward Dublin.

"In the ritual of deciphering and decoding which is an inevitable consequence of every utterance on Northern Ireland by the most powerful statesman in the world, the purpose of President Bush’s so pointedly singling out the disarming of the IRA while ignoring the other issues which are obstructing agreement in Northern Ireland was unmistakable.

"If the message from the Oval Office will be sweet music to British and Unionist ears, it will sound sour and discordant to Irish nationalists and republicans, a harsh reminder that those happy days of easy intimacy with the White House (when President Clinton would say nothing about Northern Ireland which might upset the so-called pan-nationalist alliance) are dead and buried.

"The only surprise is that it has taken President Bush over six months to reaffirm the importance which Republican Presidents have always ascribed to the ‘special relationship’ with the United Kingdom."

Fanning saw hope in the experience and skill of Irish diplomats in the U.S., not least Ambassador Sean O’Huiginn. "He and his colleagues will doubtless be reverting to the traditional Irish diplomatic strategy of building support in Congress to counteract the reaffirmation of the equally traditional Anglophilia in the White House and the State Department."

But the Irish embassy’s job would not be easy. "Most ominous of all, perhaps, from an Irish nationalist perspective," Fanning continued, "is the new president’s admiration for Winston Churchill. The British ambassador had just presented him with an Epstein bust of Churchill which he will keep in the Oval Office with busts of Eisenhower and Lincoln as ‘a constant reminder of what a great leader is like.’ He has also expressly requested a visit to the rooms of the Cabinet War Office beneath Whitehall to pay homage to his hero.

"When I visited those rooms from where Churchill ran the war and they are well worth a visit my eye was caught by a multiplicity of pinpricks on a map of these islands which hung on the wall behind Churchill’s chair. Each pinprick represented a British ship sunk in the Battle of the Atlantic. What stood out was the mass of pinpricks around the coast of Donegal.

"Somehow one doubts if his hosts will miss such a golden opportunity of reminding President Bush that, at the time when that the ‘special relationship’ by which he sets such store was most special, Ireland was neutral."

Fanning’s concerns are understandable but he is not alone in stretching Dubya’s recent remarks a bit beyond their literal phrasing. As mentioned in "IF" last week, Bush did not actually single the IRA and Sinn Féin out by name, although both were clearly on his mind in the context of decommissioning. It’s early days yet and far too early to judge Bush. Bill Clinton took all of two years to really get going on Ireland, so there is yet cause to expect that the White House will see greatest virtue in steering a balanced and purposeful course on the North.

As for Dublin building support in Congress? It might not have to try too hard. If the intervention of the likes of Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden in the Richard Egan nomination process is anything to go by, there are those on the Hill who more than willing to take out a bucket of green paint if the White House begins to take on a Union Jack hue.

The auld surf

Cead Mile Aloha. The Beach Boys of Bundoran. Surf to the turf. A new wave of tourists are aiming for the sandier reaches of the auld sod and they don’t give a splash about foot-and-mouth disease because where they’ll be placing their feet there is little chance of catching anything but the wave below.

"IF" was intrigued by an Associated Press report last week about an upcoming competition for surfers that aims at finding a 100-foot wave, if such a monster exists, and riding it to the nearest shore. The worldwide competition, with $500,000 for the first dude to find and successfully surf such a leviathan, begins in October at an undisclosed location off the Pacific Northwest coast.

According to the AP report: "From there, the contest will move to other big-surf spots, possibly the Hawaiian archipelago, Chile, South Africa, Ireland, Tasmania, New Zealand or the south Pacific Islands."

Talk about exotic company. Begob but it’s endless summer in Sligo, book him, Danny Boy, Dungloe 5-O, surf’s up at Slyne Head, surfer girls of Bloody Foreland, Bunbeg breakers . . .

They said

€ "Rep. Peter King vowed yesterday not to let a new death threat against him from militant Irish loyalists keep him out of the peace process." The New York Post.

€ "I’m sick hearing media commentators say Paisley is past it. During the election campaign, nobody even raised the question of John Hume’s capability as SDLP leader. Yet he inflicted far more damage on his party." Suzanne Breen in Belfast-published Fortnight magazine.

€ "Even if Hume retires it’s probably too late for his party. S.F. now has the psychological advantage of being ahead. Everybody wants to vote for a winner. . . Of course, S.F.’s. . . wearing SDLP clothes but in a livelier, sexier fashion. Like Fianna Fáil in the ’30s, it possesses that winning combination of a recent revolutionary past and a solid constitutional future." Breen in the same article.

€ "Loyalist violence is reprehensible, but a spurious excuse for the IRA’s failure to commit itself (to decommissioning) . . . Unionists seek no surrender, only a visible commitment to a new beginning where all parties can pursue their legitimate aspirations in peace." David Trimble in Daily News op-ed.