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Late last month it was announced that Ms. Trina Vargo, a senior foreign policy and Northern Ireland affairs advisor to Senator Edward Kennedy, is to leave her position with the Senator to head a US/Ireland alliance to promote Irish interests in the U.S.
The idea for the enterprise was reported to have originated with the Senator, who had noted the lack of a broad-based nationwide structure to encourage development of U.S.-Ireland links.
 U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy wants to start *another* Irish-American organization. In IRISH EYES, JOE O'NEILL wonders about motives.
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The Senator has been a frequent guest, in Washington, D.C., of The American Ireland Fund, headed by Tony O'Reilly. The goal of [the AIF] is, "to be the largest network of people of Irish ancestry and friends of Ireland dedicated to raising funds to support programs of peace and reconciliation, arts and culture, education and community development in Ireland, North and South." [AIF] has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.
The Ancient Order of Hibernians have been promoting such exchanges since before the Senator was born.
On the Senators own turf, the political arena, there are numerous organizations that could lay claim to be undertaking the same tasks that have been outlined by the U S/Ireland alliance.
The Irish National Caucus, The American Irish Political Education Committee, The Irish American Unity Conference --- to name but a few --- have labored year in and year out, on ...shoestring budget[s,] to promote Irish civil rights issues and an understanding amongst the American public of the nature of the conflict between the Irish people and Britian.
That Senator Kennedy has a level of prestige and can speak with a level of authority that many of these organizations could never hope to achieve is a given.
Would one more organization overlapping with many others do any harm? Of course not.
One would hope, however, given the stature of Senator Kennedy, that any attempt to launch such an organization would give some thought to the concept of the Big Tent theory of group building.
The Irish Diaspora in the United States, like many immigrant groups, do not represent a homogeneous unit. The issue of the use of force to achieve political goals, which appear on the whole to be justifiable for U.S. foreign policy objectives, yet not for Irish nationalist goals, continues to divide Irish Americans. Uppermost in the minds of those who wish to build unity and understanding must be a total commitment to equality, justice and self-determination, for all the people of Ireland. Irish American organizations will, and have, come and gone. People of goodwill in the U.S. can throw money from now until doomsday at Britain's Irish problem. The problem however will not go away until justice prevails. Britain and many Americans have yet to learn this lesson.
Joe O'Neill writes for various publications in the United States and Ireland.
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