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UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies

Seminars Autumn 2005

Monday 12 September - 'Northern Ireland, the Peace Process, and the President's Global Agenda'

Speaker: Ambassador Mitchell Reiss
Seminar Report: Northern Ireland, the Peace Process, and the President's Global Agenda

The United States envoy for Northern Ireland Ambassador Mitchell Reiss addressed the UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies.

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Thursday 29th September - 'Speech-writing in the age of Clinton'

Speaker: Mr. Ted Widmer
Venue: The William Jefferson Clinton Auditorium Seminar Room
Time: 4pm

Ted Widmer was Director of Speech-writing at the National Security Council from 1997-2000 and Senior Advisor to President Clinton from 2000-2001. While working in the White House he was responsible for major speeches on Ireland, Northern Ireland, Europe, Turkey, Africa, China, the Middle East and many other regions. He also advised President Clinton extensively on the creation of the Clinton Library. He is currently the Director of the C.V Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College, in Chestertown, Maryland. He is the author of

• Martin Van Buren (2005),
• Campaigns: A Century of Presidential Races (2001) and
• Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City (1999)

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Tuesday 4th October - 'The Quiet Man, Returning Veterans and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder' & 'Ethnic Revenge: the Western Tropes of 20th Century Irish-American Assimilation'

These seminars are part of an occasional series of lectures in association with Boston College: Dublin

Speakers: Murphy Fox (Carroll University), Jim Byrne (Trinity College Dublin)
Venue: Boston College: Dublin, Centre for Irish Programmes, 42 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin
Time: 4.30pm

Tel (01)6147454

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Wednesday 12th October - 'The 1963 Kennedy Visit to Ireland and the Problems of Recognition'

Speaker: Professor Mike Cronin (Boston College)
Venue:The William Jefferson Clinton Auditorium Seminar Room
Time: 5pm

This paper discusses the visit of President Kennedy to Ireland in 1963. The visit has traditionally been seen as Kennedy reaffirming his own Irish roots, but this paper argues that any reading of the visit is far more complex. Kennedy was positioning himself as the successful returned emigrant, and to a degree the Irish did embrace that narrative. However, this was the Ireland of Lemass' drive for modernisation, and the beginnings of Ireland's closer ties with Europe. The images and speeches associated with the visit actually demonstrate a series of problems relating to mutual recognition. For all that was familiar about Kennedy and his story of success, it was one that was increasingly alien to the mission of the Irish Republic in the 1960s. For all the mutual embraces, the paper argues that the visit symbolises more divergence in the national narrative, than convergence.

Professor Mike Cronin is Academic Director of Boston College in Ireland. He has published widely on cultural and social aspects of Irish history , including 'Sport and Nationalism in Ireland' (Dublin 1999) and (with Daryl Adair) 'The Wearing of the Green: a history of St Patrick's Day' (London, 2002). He is currently working on a history of state spectacle in Ireland from independence to the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.

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Tuesday 15th November - 'Irish and the Culture of American Regulation'

This seminar is part of an occasional series of lectures in association with Boston College: Dublin

Speaker: Professor Michael Cronin (Dublin City University)
Venue: Boston College: Dublin, Centre for Irish Programmes, 42 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin
Time: 6pm

Tel (01)6147454

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Wednesday 23rd November - '"Vietnam", Victory Culture and Iraq'

Speaker: Dr. David Ryan (University College Cork)
Venue:The William Jefferson Clinton Auditorium seminar room
Time: 5pm

This paper will deal with the attempts within various administrations to overcome the perceived cultural constraints on matters of intervention in regional conflict after Vietnam. While various presidencies devised tactics that would facilitate US engagement within culturally acceptable limits, ultimately magnifesting itself in the Powell Doctrine. The Demonstration of US credibility, resolve and leadership were aso central considerations. The tensions between inhibition and resolve were variously negotiated by the administrations concerned. Case studies will be developed from the Ford, Reagan and Bush administrations.

Dr. David Ryan is currently in the Department of History at University College Cork. He is the author of several books including:

• US-Sandinista Diplomatic Relations (1995),
• US Foreign Policy in World History (2000),
• The United States and Decolonization (2000), and
• The United States and Europe in the Twentieth Century (2003)

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