On January 29, the BMW Center for German and European Studies partnered with the Global Irish Studies Initiative, the Embassy of Ireland, The Clinton Institute at University College Dublin, and Queen’s University Belfast to host the sixth annual “Bridging the Atlantic” Conference. This project spotlights issues of mutual concern in the United States, Ireland, and the European Union.
The event included four panels ranging in topics from the future of Irish American relations, Ireland’s changing place in the world, and changing political dynamics in Washington following the 2024 Federal Elections.
The conference began with opening remarks from Cóilin Parsons, Director of Global Irish Studies at Georgetown.
Transatlantic Relations at a Crossroads
Irish Ambassador to the United States H.E. Geraldine Byrne-Nason kicked off the panel, speaking about areas for growth and change in the Irish-American relationship with President Trump back in power. She stressed the need to keep all lines of communication open during Trump’s second term, just as Ireland had during his first.
“We need to understand the fine print and see who the other actors are,” said Ambassador Byrne-Nason in response to a question from panel moderator Niamh King (Aspen Strategy Group) on how Ireland will engage with the United States in times of tension or disagreement. “800 million people between the US and Europe are on the table when we talk about this relationship. One third of the world’s GDP and trade come from this relationship. We have a responsibility as the EU and US to forge a way forward; it’s an obligation we have to our people.”
Ambassador Bryne-Nason was joined on the panel by H.E Francisco António Duarte Lopes, the Portuguese Ambassador to the United States, and Ambassador Stuart Holliday, President of the Meridian International Center. Like Ambassador Byrne-Nason, they cautioned against panic about transatlantic trade.
“I would encourage our European friends not to overreact,” said Ambassador Holliday. “Fasten your seatbelts for a change in tone, in rhetoric, and in words. Before USMCA, there was similar language being thrown around, but in the end a better deal came out.”
Despite Trump’s rhetoric, Ambassador Byrne-Nason referenced areas for cooperation and mutual respect, expressing her belief that the EU’s origin as a peace-making institution aligns well with Trump’s more non-interventionist foreign policy.
“Can you imagine 27 American states coming together to agree on sensitive policy areas like energy, tax, and trade?” she said. “There is a lesson from the EU that coming together in common interest is difficult, but requires compromises. The president likes results and I think in Europe we have shown how we do that.”
Ambassador Duarte Lopes echoed Ambassador Bryne-Nason’s optimism, citing the resilience of trade and Portugal’s status as a founding member of NATO as reasons to remain hopeful in the transatlantic relationship.
“We may be fighting on policy differences, but we are not fighting each other,” he said.
Navigating Global Challenges in Security and Defense
The second panel featured Dame Louise Richardson, President of the Carnegie Corporation and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford, in conversation with Catherine Lucey, a White House Reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
A native of Ireland who has spent most of her adult life in the United States, Dame Louise commented on the state of the Irish-American cultural ties. She cited shifting demographics and the further assimilation of Irish Americans as cause for skepticism of the continued power of the Irish-American diaspora, even going so far as to predict that President Biden will be the last Irish-American president.
When asked about the closure of Israel’s Embassy in Dublin and Ireland’s recent recognition of Palestine as a sovereign and independent state, Dame Louise responded:
“As a small victim of colonialism itself, Ireland tends to identify with other victims of colonialism,”
She asserted that Ireland’s small size and values-based foreign policy mean Ireland can afford to criticize Israel in the manner it has thus far. “As a small country you can take a principled stance with few tradeoffs.”
The View from Capitol Hill
The third panel – moderated by Prof. Scott Lucas (UCD) – brought together two Members of Congress from opposite sides of the aisle, Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA 5th) and Representative Pat Fallon (R-TX 4th) to comment on the state of transatlantic relations from a Capitol Hill perspective.
While both agreed on the necessity for NATO members to live up to the agreement’s mandate of 2% defense spending, they disagreed on other aspects of America’s relationship with the other side of the Atlantic.
Representative Scanlon noted her concern on growing isolationism and argued the importance of not prioritizing authoritarian interests at the expense of liberal democracies, specifically citing the importance of investing in NATO and aiding refugees.
Representative Fallon noted how the world has changed greatly since the era of bipolar Cold War spheres.
The conversation then shifted to the Irish-American relationship, specifically. Representative Scanlon referenced a direct shipping lane from her District to Cork and emphasized that Irish trade is about 9% of trade with Pennsylvania.
The two disagreed about the role that tariffs are playing in the new Trump administration. Fallon believes that Trump is simply using tariffs as a negotiation tactic, while Scanlon argues that “Tweeting about tariffs is not proper diplomacy.”
Looking Back, Looking Forward
The program’s last panel brought together some experts on Irish history, to examine how the last one hundred years of Irish-American relations might affect the next one hundred.
Professor Darragh Gannon (Associate Director of Global Irish Studies at Georgetown University) moderated a conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Stack (Executive Director of the American Irish Historical Society), Professor Niall Ó Dochartaigh (University of Galway), and Professor Tyler Anbinder (The George Washington University).
Profesor Anbinder spoke on his research on Irish immigrants to America after the Great Famine, emphasizing their upward economic mobility, contrary to the popular stereotype of Irish immigrants stuck in dead-end jobs.
When asked about the archives at the American Irish Historical Society, Dr. Stack brought up how there was much more Irish transatlantic cooperation earlier than initially thought, noting how the history of Ireland was greater than the traditional view offered by an ‘island story’.
Commenting on more recent Irish-American relations, Professor Ó Dochartaigh asserted that the period of The Troubles greatly stimulated and re-energized Irish and American connections throughout the 1960s and 1970s, noting the extent to which the question of Northern Ireland engaged the interest of American civil society at every level, from working class associations to higher level education..
Regarding the recent wave of American media interested in Irish history (Derry Girls, Brooklyn, the Banshees of Inisherin), the panel discussed possible periods of Irish-American history that could experience similar success in American popular culture. Professor Ó Dochartaigh brought up the waves of immigration in the past few decades that have created an increasingly diverse Ireland.
Dr. Stack noted the challenge for historians to both store the past and also to open. “The future and the present can’t be shamrocks and shillelaghs.”
Bringing the conference to a conclusion, Mr. Ted Smyth (UCD Clinton Institute) struck a positive note for the futures of transatlantic relations, quoting Irish poet Seamus Heaney: “hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth fighting for.”
