A man of courage for Ireland

TED Kennedy wasn’t Jack and he wasn’t Bobby but, despite growing tarnished and growing old, he achieved more than both of them put together, particularly when it came to Ireland.

When JFK visited Ireland in 1963, a few short months before his assassination, he arrived on a tide of joy and emotion. It was a sort of homecoming, and it was clear the president’s heart had always been in Ireland. But he was not about to do anything tangible for the land of his forefathers. The taoiseach at the time, Sean Lemass, was told in no uncertain terms that neither the issue of Irish unity nor the border were to be raised with the president during his visit.

Two decades later, Ronald Reagan, another Irish-American president, took the same line when he arrived in Ballyporeen and when he later addressed the joint houses of the Oireachtas in Dublin. He did not want to do or say anything that would upset his precious relationship with then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

But Ted was different, more courageous in many ways and certainly more pragmatic than either JFK or Reagan. Although he also saw Ireland through a prism of Celtic mysticism, his personal contribution to Irish affairs came more from the head than the heart.

His connection with the North began almost casually. He was taking a walk in a London park in 1971 when a woman came up to him and demanded to know why Kennedy, an Irish-American, was silent when the British locked up Irish Catholics without trial and stood by when Protestant paramilitary groups attacked Catholics. His first reaction was a simplistic “Brits out” message, demanding Ireland be united and the British army leave the North.

He made mistakes aplenty, particularly in the early years. Senator Kennedy often angered loyalists with his sympathies towards the republican movement and some of his early pronouncements reflected a political immaturity and ignorance of the scale and horror of the Troubles. But after he met with John Hume of the SDLP in 1972, he was quickly convinced that his stance was impractical and that he should support efforts for equal treatment in the North. The almost penniless Hume was so enthralled by Kennedy that he took out a loan from a credit union in Derry to fly to the US to meet him.

As he grew older, Kennedy also grew wiser on the North while learning to understand the growing pains of the South as it sought to overcome poverty. On St Patrick’s Day 1977, Kennedy joined with Tip O’Neill, Pat Moynihan, and New York governor Hugh Carey to urge Irish-Americans to stop sending money to the IRA. The four influential Irish-American politicians – nicknamed the Four Horsemen – lobbied for peace and economic growth on both sides of the border – and worked closely with the Irish Government and Hume to counter support in the United States for violent Irish republicanism.

He also persuaded Carter to promise economic aid if a settlement could be reached in the North.

Into the 1980s, Sen Kennedy still tended to wear his Irishness openly. Whenever the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher visited Washington, Sen Kennedy could always be seen wearing a bright green tie, an unsubtle statement of his support for republicanism.

But gradually he began to realise that thoughtless republicanism was not going to bring either peace or prosperity to Ireland. In 1985, he led a congressional delegation in creating the International Fund for Ireland for job-creation and encouraging peace and reconciliation. In the 90s, he was intricately involved in the Good Friday Agreement.

In 1993, he persuaded president Bill Clinton to appoint his sister, Jean Kennedy Smith, as ambassador to Ireland. When he visited her in Dublin the next year, she urged him to support a US visa for Gerry Adams, who was banned as a terrorist. When Hume told him Adams might now be a force for peace, Kennedy agreed and, over the objections of the British and the US State Department, Clinton ordered the visa to be issued. The inclusion of Adams and a number of IRA hard-liners proved essential to the peace talks in the late 90s.

As the years wore on, Kennedy mellowed and modified his views. In a speech in Derry in January 1998, he said: “To nationalists who have suffered decades of injustice and discrimination, I say, ‘Look how far you have come ... have faith in yourselves and in the future’.

“And to unionists who often feel afraid of what the future may bring, I recall that you are descendants of the pioneers who helped build America and now you can be the pioneers who build a better future for this island.”

Ted Kennedy wasn’t just a green- flag wearing republican sympathiser, though. He was very much his own man. Early in 2005, he publicly snubbed Gerry Adams by canceling a meeting between the two. Kennedy cited the Provisional IRA’s “ongoing criminal activities and contempt for the rule of law” as the reason for canceling the meeting.

His steadfastness won him praise from both sides of the conflict.

In 2007 Ted Kennedy said he was honoured to be part of the “historic opening” of the new Government in the North. “A new day has dawned for the people of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has shown the world that peace is possible, even in the face of tragic history, and it offers hope for peaceful reconciliation in other troubled areas of the world.”

An even more memorable day was to come. When, on Wednesday, April 30, 2008, Bertie Ahern became the first Irish leader to declare before a joint sitting of Congress: “Ireland is at peace”, Ted Kennedy was there. He could rightfully take pride in his contribution to bringing peace and prosperity to the land he loved so well.

Not bad going for little Teddy, the younger brother of Jack and Bobby Kennedy.