Guest Essay by Professors Kimberly Cowell-Meyers and Carolyn A. Gallaher

Irish Americans were deeply involved in supporting the peace process in Northern Ireland in the 1990s. In the decades that followed, however, Irish America’s engagement faded.  Its leaders retired, its organizations shrunk, and its activists moved on from the issues that had held their attention during the Troubles.  And, yet, the Irish-American lobby re-emerged to have a profound impact on US foreign policy around Brexit. Our recent book, Building a Green Wall: Irish American Resurgence Post-Brexit, uses interviews and media coverage on both sides of the Atlantic to examine how Irish America helped prevent the reinstitution of a hard land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland during the UK’s tortured withdrawal from the EU. 

The Challenge of Brexit

Once the British public voted to leave the EU in 2016, the UK government had to negotiate a deal to withdraw from the EU. The terms of the withdrawal deal needed to address three considerations simultaneously: EU concerns about non-EU goods and services entering their common market, the UK’s right to exercise full sovereignty over its territory, and the delicate arrangements of the peace process in Northern Ireland.

The situation of Northern Ireland was one of the most challenging parts of the Brexit negotiations. After the peace process, the British government demilitarized Northern Ireland’s border with the Republic. Within a few years, the border became virtually invisible, like those between other EU states. Over time, an all-Ireland economy developed, as businesses built cross-border production lines and markets.  

Brexit meant there would need to be a border where customs checks could occur. Re-establishing the border on the island of Ireland, however, could disrupt the all-island economy and put the peace process at risk. The now open border was viewed as one of the signature dividends of the peace agreement. In particular, the open border allowed Irish nationalists to feel a part of Ireland even though Northern Ireland remained part of the UK. The open border also aligned with elements of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement that allowed people in Northern Ireland to claim dual identities (British and Irish) and to carry passports from both countries. 

Negotiations on the withdrawal deal were tense and prolonged. Eventually, in 2020, the UK and EU agreed to a deal that put the custom checks at ports in Northern Ireland and left the land border open. Even after the deal was signed, however, conflict continued over its implementation and did not wind down until the signing of the Windsor Framework in 2023. 

Irish America Responds

Our book explains what happened in the US after the EU-UK negotiations appeared to falter in 2019. At that point, the threat Brexit posed to the peace process in Northern Ireland drove an unanticipated and enthusiastic remobilization of the Irish American lobby. Its members, who had continued to follow Northern Ireland politics, stepped into what was a US policy vacuum on Brexit. Until then, the US had no clear position on what the withdrawal agreement should look like. Working alongside the Irish government, which was also lobbying in the US, the Irish American lobby used its connections and expertise to shape US foreign policy around Brexit to prevent the reimposition of a hard border on the island of Ireland. 

The Irish American lobby found a rich opportunity in Brexiteers’ desire for a US-UK trade deal. Connecting the potential of a deal to British policy on Brexit, they sought to leverage British interests to constrain what the UK government could do.  For example, in the spring of 2019, powerful US legislators, including Senator Chris Murphy, Congressman Richie Neal and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, among others, travelled to the UK to explain that they would not support a bilateral trade deal if the British government, through its policies or by default, established a border on the island of Ireland.  

From 2019 until 2023, members of Congress passed resolutions, held hearings, wrote letters, travelled on Congressional delegations to the UK and Ireland, and otherwise pressured the British government to prevent a hard border and protect the peace agreement. Members of the Trump and Biden Administrations also adopted the Irish American position that British trade opportunities depended on how the UK government handled the border..

Irish America, theoretically, should not have been able to have such an effect. When it remobilized, Irish America faced strong headwinds; Irish Americans were no longer a coherent voting bloc. There was also no mass membership organization, or a political action committee (PAC) to raise money or lobby. Instead, the Irish American lobby relied on five key strengths.   

What Makes Irish America Effective?

First, despite its political and geographic dispersion, Irish America has a coherent political culture, a “tribal bond” in the words of Caitríona Perry. This shared identity, often framed around anti-British grievance and anti-elitism has survived generations of assimilation in the US. President Joe Biden, for example, called himself Irish, even though his nearest relative from Ireland immigrated to the US 165 years ago. 

Second, Irish America enjoys dense social and political networks and possesses political skills. As one of our interview subjects explained, Irish America doesn’t need a lobbyist or a single-peak organization because it has people willing to do the work for “us,” some 30-50 people in the DC area who are, “high minded, well-connected, dedicated and tireless,” and also “very good at whisper campaigns.” Irish American editor Niall O’Dowd, once described their political savvy this way: “We do communications, politics. Italians cook.”

Third, Irish Americans enjoy a proximity to political power. Though there is no ethnic registry of members of government, Irish Americans have traditionally been over-represented in Congress and the executive branch. This was especially true during the Biden Administration. Not only was the President a proud Irish American and deeply familiar with the issues but so were his National Security Advisor, his Secretaries of Labor and Veteran’s Affairs, the head of the European desk at the National Security Council, his Deputy Chief of Staff and Domestic Policy Council Director, and his top level appointees at USAID and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement, the key organization for Irish American lobbying around Brexit, leveraged the expertise and experience of former members of Congress, retired ambassadors, former special envoys, Consul Generals, and congressional staffers as well as academics, business leaders, and leaders of Irish American cultural organizations.

Fourth, Irish America enjoys quirky institutional opportunities around St. Patrick’s Day in Washington. Every year, during the week of St. Patrick’s, the Irish Taoiseach has a meeting with the US president (the shamrock ceremony). There is also a luncheon hosted by the US Speaker of the House, receptions hosted by the Irish and British Embassies, the Northern Ireland Bureau, the Washington Ireland Program. The Ireland Funds holds its gala dinner, and the Washington Forum on Northern Ireland hosts an annual conference.  The events provide occasions for Irish America to lobby policymakers and shape their perceptions. As Patrick Leahy noted in The Irish Times in 2022, “and every single one of them [the other nations of the world] would give a generation of their first born for the opportunity and access enjoyed here…If you think all of this has nothing to do with green ties and bowls of shamrock in Washington, you need to revisit your understanding of how the worlds of policy and diplomacy work.” 

Finally, Irish America benefits from deep societal good will. It was able to have such influence in the moment in part because it was pushing on an open door. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement enjoys broad, bipartisan support. Congressman Neal called it “the most successful foreign policy achievement in a generation” and some members of Congress refer to the US as one of its co-guarantors (though not technically correct, this reveals the sense of commitment they have to it). 

Conclusion 

Building a Green Wall chronicles the role of the Irish American lobby during the Brexit process, documents the efforts it undertook, and evaluates the means through which it exercised influence. It builds on the story of Irish American influence during the peace process and updates the record of how Irish America has shaped US foreign policy towards Ireland/Northern Ireland in the 21st century. 

Although the lobby was unusually successful on Brexit, our research shows that it struggled to have a similar effect on British legislation dealing with crimes committed during the Troubles, which was passed in the same period. While the lobby agreed on the need for truth and reconciliation and was well-positioned to lobby around it, its members lacked leverage. The cohesion of the Irish American lobby may also be strained around campaigns for Irish re-unification in the coming decades. Its members are not in full agreement on how or whether to lobby for reunification, though it may be able to provide space for discussion outside the klieg lights in Belfast.

Irish America’s resurgence was improbable and may not repeat itself, but its success provides a lesson for those who see foreign policy, and politics more broadly, in cynical terms. With no money or formal lobbying group, it defended the gains of Northern Ireland’s landmark peace agreement.