| A Different Tune
“For thirty years we have been the gifted musician playing
the tune. From now on we want to be the composer writing the music.”
– Mary Harney
As Irish America’s editor for the past 20 years I have witnessed
a major sea change in the economic relationship between Ireland and the
U.S.
For centuries Ireland depended on help from the U.S. but today Irish firms
employ as many people in the U.S. as American companies do in Ireland.
The number of Irish-born executives in corporate America is at an all-time
high.
Ireland is now the 9th largest investor in the U.S.
Irish companies in the Financial, Software, Governance, Medical Devices
and Biotech fields are doing exceptionally well. And Irish product/service
is being used by many of the largest financial institutions in the U.S.
including Citibank, JP Morgan Chase and HSBC.
American companies that have played a major role in Ireland’s economic
miracle have also gained by it. Profits of the more than 500 U.S. firms
doing business in Ireland surged by 45 percent in 2003.
“The American companies benefited from the fine educational system
with its emphasis on science, engineering and mathematics, and from a
government that’s pro-business because they know that is pro-jobs,”
said Richard Egan (Irish America, 2002) the former ambassador to Ireland,
whose company EMC now employs 1,600 workers in its Cork plant.
Another factor that has contributed to Ireland’s success is the
number of U.S.-based organizations that foster growth and prosperity in
Ireland. Many of our Business 100 are involved in such groups. To name
a few, Jim Quinn is the chairman of the Smurfit School of Business at
University College Dublin, having recently taken over from Tom Moran.
Mike Gibbons is President of the Ireland U.S. Council, picking up the
mantle from Mike Roarty.
And any number of our honorees are involved with The American Ireland
Fund which annually hosts 70 events attended by 40,000 people in 39 cities
around the world, and promotes peace, culture and economic stability in
Ireland.
Under the stewardship of chairman Loretta Brennan Glucksman the Fund raised
111 million dollars over the past five years.
Lew and Loretta Glucksman have also personally contributed to numerous
educational projects in Ireland, including establishing libraries at Limerick
and Cork universities. All this in addition to their splendid gift to
New York University of the center for Irish Studies.
Thanks to the Glucksmans and others – Brian Burns has built the
Burns Library at Boston College, and Donald Keough bequested a Chair in
Irish Studies to Notre Dame – thousands of students all across the
U.S. are discovering their Irish heritage.
As they study the literature, history, politics, and music of Ireland
they are also learning that it is no longer the place that their ancestors
left in hard times.
Today Ireland’s modern confident economy is the envy of Europe,
and it has spawned an equally modern and assured
generation of Irish.
“For thirty years we have been the gifted musician playing the tune.
From now on we want to be the composer writing the music,” said
the former Minister for Enterpise, Tánaiste Mary Harney, speaking
in Washington to a gathering of senior business figures from the U.S.
and Ireland, both North and South.
I hope this new composition includes a song for Irish- America. It would
be nice if some of Ireland’s newfound wealth funded an Irish-American
Studies Program (or a series of studies). For there is a need in Ireland
for students to learn the history and contributions that Irish-Americans
have made to the world.
Irish-America too needs to address its relationship with this new Ireland.
At the moment there is a lot of bad feeling on both sides over the war
in Iraq. In all the discord it’s easy to forget the value of our
unique relationship which helped bring about, amongst other things, the
Good Friday Agreement.
As Loretta Glucksman says in a wonderful close to her interview. “I
hope that we can grow with the evolution and keep the relationship, because
it’s invaluable to both our cultures. What made the people that
came to America do so spectacularly well was what’s in their DNA
from Ireland, so it’s a full circle.”
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