Lynch put in a spot on north by US congressman

THE government was embarrassed after New York congressman Mario Biaggi wrote to taoiseach Jack Lynch on January 24, 1978, congratulating him on an RTÉ interview a fortnight earlier in which he called on the British to declare their intention to withdraw their troops from Northern Ireland.

Biaggi had been a prominent member of the Irish National Caucus (INC) and was writing as chairman of a newly formed ad hoc congressional committee.

“The ad hoc committee is most interested in seeing this declaration of intent become a reality,” Biaggi wrote. His letter was a distinct embarrassment to the government, because he had been outspoken in his support of the Provisional IRA.

Fred Burns O’Brien, national director of the INC, wrote a similar letter in which he went on to commend Lynch for not only firing Garda commissioner Edmund Garvey, but also suggesting an amnesty for republican prisoners and, above all, for securing “a victory against the British over that government’s inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in Northern Ireland”.

The influence of the INC, and the ad hoc committee were “minuscule” in comparison with that of the so-called Four Horsemen: speaker of the House of Representatives “Tip” O’Neill, senators Ted Kennedy and Daniel P Moynihan and governor Hugh Carey of New York. They had come out strongly in favour of the Government, but the ad hoc committee’s appeared to distort Lynch’s position as being similar to the Provisionals.

The ad hoc committee could not be dismissed lightly. It comprised 87 congressmen, which increased to 104 in coming days.

As far as Iveagh House was concerned, however, the Italian-American Biaggi was only playing the Irish card for his own political ends.

On February 17 the taoiseach acknowledged Biaggi’s letters with a stinging reply, denouncing the misrepresentations of Irish policy by the INC and Biaggi’s ad hoc committee. Copies of this reply were widely circulated and received extensive publicity.

John M Keane, president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), sought to retaliate against the Taoiseach by trying to call off an AOH convention planned for Killarney that summer. But Keane was overridden by over two-thirds of AOH executive.

Irish officials in America could hardly have cared less, as they were disillusioned with the AOH. The embassy in Washington warned that the AOH had been requesting 2,000 rooms in Killarney, but there had only been 250 bookings.

The New York manager of CIE said he would be glad if the whole thing was called off. After the last convention held in Ireland, CIE had to sue AOH to collect about $14,000 in fees.

Lynch effectively undermined the ad hoc committee by depicting it as sympathetic to the PIRA. Although the committee boasted of 104 congressional members at one point, only Biaggi and two other congressmen turned up on May 3 for its well-flagged meeting to be addressed by the AOH president.

Nevertheless Biaggi still exerted enough electoral clout to divide the Four Horsemen. In his bid for re-election as governor of New York, Hugh Carey played along with Biaggi.

But when Biaggi planned to visit Dublin and Belfast in November 1978 Ambassador Seán Donlon warned Iveagh House “that we should do nothing which would enable the congressman to use the visit to build up his own prestige in the United States. Accordingly, it is deemed desirable that he should not be received by any minister.”

Biaggi was later destroyed politically when he was convicted of obstruction of justice and accepting bribes, along with 15 other felony counts. In 1988 he was fined heavily, sentenced to two years in jail, and forced to resign his seat in Congress.