Long way to Tipperary for Anglo-Irish Agreement

The late Fine Gael leader and taoiseach Garret FitzGerald used a close ancestral connection with US president Ronald Reagan to help sway Margaret Thatcher towards the Anglo-Irish agreement.

Speaking at the inaugural Dr Garret FitzGerald summer school in Killarney, Co Kerry, the late taoiseach’s son Mark, spoke of the ancestral connection between the Reagans and the FitzGeralds, and the advantage Dr FitzGerald sought to gain from it in his negotiations with Britain’s then prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Reagan’s “huge” help to Ireland in the run-up to the 1985 signing of the Anglo- Irish agreement has not been fully appreciated, said Mr FitzGerald.

The FitzGeralds came from Skeheenarinky, Co Tipperary. The Reagans of Ballyporeen came from the same hillside, “three-and-a-half miles apart”.

The FitzGeralds and the Reagans had been godparents at each others christenings, Mr FitzGerald said in a presentation on his father’s life at the school organised by Young Fine Gael.

Garrett’s grandfather Pat-rick FitzGerald, a labourer, emigrated to London in the 1850s/1860s. Reagan’s great grandfather left for London around this time and afterwards emigrated to the US.