More than 25 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the Irish American diaspora still plays an important role in influencing US-Ireland relations and the United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland policies. In new research, Albert C. Cano looks at the lobbying strategies of Irish Americans – including politicians in the US Congress – to influence policy, such as lobbying on the UK’s Legacy Act, funding mental health initiatives, and supporting peace and justice in Northern Ireland.
“When I heard about it, I burst into tears”. That’s what a young man told me during a field interview in Northern Ireland (NI) when asked about the day the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 was passed. The Act, which offers conditional amnesty to all former members of the security forces and ex-paramilitaries for Troubles-related crimes, triggered an intense emotional reaction in someone who wasn’t even alive during the conflict—highlighting the ongoing impact of transgenerational trauma and the broader mental health crisis that the Northern Ireland peace process has failed to address.
The Irish American diaspora played a decisive role in NI’s past, from elite lobbying to grassroots funding. Yet its post-Good Friday Agreement (GFA) influence remains largely overlooked. My summer 2024 field research, funded by the LSE Phelan US Centre’s PhD Summer Research Grants scheme, is revealing how Irish America continues to mobilise—lobbying on the Legacy Act, funding mental health initiatives, and adapting to a shifting US foreign policy landscape in the Trump era.
How did Irish Americans contribute to the peace process in Northern Ireland?
Diasporas are often seen as peace-stokers or peacebuilders, and Irish America has embodied both—shaping NI’s conflict through financial support, lobbying, and activism. During the Troubles, this dual role manifested in competing and often contradictory strategies.
For one, the Irish Northern Aid Committee (NORAID) was an Irish American organisation that sought to promote the cause of a United Ireland. While it supported the peace process, NORAID was notorious for its efforts in raising funds for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). For another, a group of Irish American politicians that came to be known as the Four Horsemen—Speaker Tip O’Neill, New York Governor Hugh Carey, Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy, and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan—lobbied for a nonviolent resolution through both American mediation and campaigning against American IRA funding. Additionally, the Irish National Caucus (INC) offered a middle-ground approach in denouncing discrimination and human rights infringement by the British Army in NI, without openly supporting violence.
While much of this is well-documented, less attention has been paid to how these forces interacted, to the point of sabotaging peace-making efforts. My Archival research at the Burns Library and the JFK Presidential Library and Museum revealed that the main goal of the Four Horsemen was to undermine the Caucus’ efforts to frame the conflict in terms of human rights abuses (police brutality, Bloody Sunday, internment without trial, inhumane prison conditions, alleged state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries). This elite peace-making not only obstructed a stronger US brokering role early on—it also entrenched a sectarian ‘good vs evil’ narrative of the conflict that decisively shaped the GFA and continues to influence NI today.
Even less attention has been paid to how these diasporic actors have continued to influence the peace process in NI beyond the critical effort brought about by Senator George Mitchell in brokering the Good Friday Agreement. While it could have been assumed that Irish American influence would decline post-agreement, my interviews in New England revealed that both elite and grassroots diasporic engagement persist to this day—though in evolving forms.
“P20230414KR-0675” by Biden White House Archived is United States government work
Elite diasporic peacebuilding: Continued lobbying by Irish American politicians
When it comes to elite diasporic groups, both the Friends of Ireland (FI)—the caucus founded by the Four Horsemen in 1981—and the INC continue to be active. Just in February 2025, Congressmen Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Richard Neal (D-MA) relaunched FI, reaffirming their commitment to US-Ireland relations and the GFA. Yet their vague rhetoric—devoid of concrete policy positions—raises questions about the caucus’s actual political weight. Notably, they failed to outline any concrete policies or priorities, relying instead on the ‘peace and reconciliation’ rhetoric that often raises suspicion in many in NI.
As for the Irish National Caucus, it continues to operate as a nonprofit, nonviolent, and nonpartisan human rights/advocacy group, as its political action committee, INC Irish PAC, became inactive after 2002. In July last year, right after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office, a bipartisan group of 24 members of Congress linked to the INC issued a letter to the newly appointed Prime Minister requesting him to repeal the Legacy Act. Two years earlier, a letter to the families of the victims of Bloody Sunday was sent on the date of the massacre’s 50th anniversary (I’m thankful to my anonymous interviewee for providing me with copies of both). The INC thus maintains its mission to lobby the US and UK governments to support not only peace but also justice in NI.
It is still too soon to determine FI’s actual agenda. However, Kelly and Neal’s decision to sign the 2024 letter to Starmer suggests that FI may be moving away from its historical role of controlling the dominant US narrative on the peace process. This shift is particularly notable given the INC’s close ties to the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), a grassroots Catholic Irish American fraternal organisation that has long played a role in promoting Irish heritage and political advocacy.
Grassroots diasporic peacebuilding: NORAID’s community-building
In July 2024, I attended NORAID’s Connecticut branch meeting—one of the monthly gatherings they have held uninterrupted since the Troubles. Whereas NORAID had been primarily engaged in political lobbying, particularly in mobilising Irish Americans during key moments like the 1981 Hunger Strikes, since the GFA the branch has devoted its efforts to continued community investment/building in NI. Just a month earlier, the group had organized a golf tournament to raise funds in support of a range of local initiatives—from purchasing sports equipment for a children’s football club in Belfast to funding PIPS, a leading charity tackling NI’s devastating suicide crisis, a testimony of the region’s mounting mental health crisis.
Additionally, the group funds trips for members to NI, where they attend conferences, engage with local politicians, and assess how best to allocate their resources. One of the initiatives they collaborate with the most is Ireland’s Future, which seeks to reach out and engage Unionists in the conversation of how a United Ireland would best cater to them and make them feel included.
Interestingly, I was told that collaboration between NORAID, the AOH, and even politicians linked to the INC is frequent. This shift stands in stark contrast to the deep divisions of the conflict era, signalling a new phase of Irish American diaspora unity—one that prioritises collaboration over confrontation and invests in the long-term future of NI.
Irish America continues to be involved following the Good Friday Agreement
Irish American involvement in Northern Ireland did not disappear post-GFA—it evolved into a mix of elite lobbying and grassroots community investment that, most importantly, has remained quite in touch with the needs of the region. Critical and urgent issues of justice and social well-being—most notably, the fight against the Legacy Act, the mental health crisis, and cross-community engagement—have become the focus of diasporic efforts at solidarity.
The relaunch of the FI Caucus suggests there will be an increase in Irish American political lobbying, which added to the undying efforts of the INC, the AOH, and NORAID may offset the disappearance of President Biden from the political scene. A staunch Irish American, Biden was a longtime supporter of FI dating back to Speaker O’Neill’s time. With Trump’s return and his isolationist policies on the horizon, a strong Irish American political voice seems more crucial than ever—particularly as a re-unification referendum in NI appears increasingly plausible. When the time comes, Irish America will want, and need, to make its voice count.
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- Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.
