An Accidental Diplomat by Eamon Delaney

Author:Eamon Delaney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Island Publishing
Published: 2013-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

14

Greens Under the Bed

Each Monday, we would give oral reports on the outside events attended over the weekend. In general, the CG would do the power-broking events; Ireland Fund dinners at the Waldorf or ‘working breakfasts’ with the Tara Circle. The DCG would do the upmarket cultural stuff, like the Wild Geese in Greenwich, Connecticut or the Friendly Sons out on Long Island. James and I would do the more proletarian events, like police hops and County dinner dances.

It was a situation I was happy with. I preferred the authentic atmosphere and crack of the ‘céilí and chicken’ circuit than the more snobbish Wild Geese with their cut-glass world of Aran jumpers and poetry readings. In many ways, the richer Irish-America gets, the phonier and more self important it becomes.

But the CG was apoplectic when he heard about the Dessie Ellis stunt at the Louth Dance, only relaxing slightly when I told him about the Society’s apologies and Frankie Beirne’s support. His reaction showed the sensitivities for the Embassy and Consulate of dealing with the issue of Northern Ireland in the US context. Ironically only a few weeks earlier I had been asked to spy on the Dessie Ellis protest outside the Consulate. It was a Sunday and the office was closed but a small group had gathered down on the street, holding placards. Because I was not yet working at the Consulate (I was still at the UN) I would not be recognised and so could mingle in with the demo and listen to the speeches.

Bernadette McAliskey spoke and condemned the Irish Government for ‘extraditing an innocent man’. McAliskey is one of more hardline people thrown up by the Northern conflict and people cheered. (Interestingly, Consulate files revealed that McAliskey herself was ‘monitored’ when she came out to the US as an spokesperson in the late Sixties, causing consternation among Irish-Americans by consorting with Black Panthers and other revolutionaries.) Unfortunately I was suddenly photographed listening to her, although thankfully the photo was never used.

And something else happened which gave me a start. ‘Come with me,’ said some heavy dude, grabbing my arm. ‘Oh no, rumbled,’ I thought. But then he began opening the trunk of a parked car. For a horrible moment, I thought he was going to pull out a mortar and take a pot at the Consulate. Instead he handed me dozens of copies of the Irish People, the IRA’s paper in North America. ‘Here, flog a few of these’ he said, pushing them into my hands, it being presumed that I was an ‘activist’ like him. ‘Eh … later,’ I mumbled and melted away. I don’t think Noraid would have taken too kindly to being infiltrated by the Free State. Nor would the CG have appreciated me getting quite so undercover.

The CG was paranoid about the Noraid element, or the ‘radicals’, as he called them. (Noraid was a shorthand for Irish Northern Aid, ostensibly a fundraising organisation for the families of IRA prisoners.) To understand such

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