This article is from page 18 of the 2011-01-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
FORMER US president Ronald Reagan famously toasted his Irish roots when drinking a glass of stout in Ballyporeen in 1984 during his controversial state visit to Ireland, but four years previously it was to Clare and not Tipperary that the then White House aspirant looked to when embracing his Irishness for the first time.
Early in his campaign for the presidency, Reagan had shown little interest in tracing his Irish roots, but the State Papers from 1980 reveal that all changed when the Republican Party candidate discovered that his connections with Ireland descended back to Killaloe and the High King of Ireland, Brian Boru.
Reagan revealed his interest in his relationship to the most famous Clareman of all-time in a phone-call to Morgan Llywelyn, the acclaimed author of Lion of Ireland that was published earlier in 1980.
Details of Reagan’s phone-call to Llywelyn that occurred a matter of weeks before he was inaugurated as president came to the notice of the state after the American-born writer gave a detailed account of the conversation to Ireland’s ambassador in Washingthon, Clareman Con Howard.
“At 1.30pm on Christmas Eve I was working in my study when the telephone rang,” wrote Ms Llywelyn. “This is Ronald Reagan. When I picked myself up off the floor, the President elect told me he had called to say how impressed he was with the Lion of Ireland . ‘I just wanted you to know that you are interfering with the transition process dreadfully because I sneak away every chance I get to read your book’, Reagan said.
“He had obviously read the book thoroughly and with high retention, for he can quote chunks of it. He was warm and friendly, easy to talk with. He told me he has found much that is thought-provoking and analogous to current situations in Lion, and that he was grateful to have knowledge of that distant ancestor of his. He indicated that some of Brian’s strategies and philosophies had impressed him deeply.
“He is interested in learning more about Ireland and the Irish. He wants to know the positive things; like so many others, he had heard for too long only the negative.
“The incoming president is half Irish and glad of it, according to his own words. With so many other ma jor and immediate problems vying for his attention, he has taken the time to express a sincere and personal interest in Ireland,” concluded Llywelyn in her letter to the Dysart-born Irish ambassador, who was associated with another famous literary figure in Clare history – Brian Merriman, in whose honour he founded the Merriman Summer School in 1967.