Leo regrets out-of-turn Clinton quip to the interns
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar speaks at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, during his visit to the US for St Patrick's Day. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire
"Leo Varadkar was open about his political ambitions, even then."
So said Carol Wheeler of the Washington Ireland Program about the Taoiseach, some two decades after he served in the office of congressman Jack Quinn.
As he welcomed the 2023 class of the program, who come from across the island of Ireland, Mr Varadkar said he believed that he was looking at the leaders of the future and urged them to enjoy the awkward conversations and the curiosity inspired by the city which prepared him to begin the political career which would see him twice lead his country.
The Taoiseach, on a rooftop just across a lawn from the US Capitol, joked about the fact that he was interning in the last year of the Clinton presidency "when parents might have had cause for concern about what happened to interns" in the city.
Later he would say the remark was "ill-judged" and he regretted it. Mr Varadkar made the comment just hours after meeting Bill Clinton's wife Hillary and after he had confirmed the two would visit Northern Ireland next month to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which Mr Clinton was pivotal in securing.
Handing over to the new Special Envoy on Economic Affairs to Northern Ireland Joe Kennedy III, Mr Varadkar said that the program has seen young Irish people contribute to the building of the American dream.
Mr Kennedy pointed to the scaffolding around the dome of the US Capitol and said the works are a reminder that democracy as a project is an ongoing work that is "only as good as the people who commit to work on it" and that he was "honoured by the Taoiseach's example" in this regard.
The words of a member of American political royalty, whose relatives were killed because of their pursuit of that democracy, above the lawn stormed on January 6 2021, were particularly impactful.
Day two of the Taoiseach's visit to Washington DC was focused on these relationships — the soft but inexorable intertwining of Ireland and America, two countries that would be unrecognisable without one another.
Kicking off in Georgetown University, the Taoiseach took part in an event that paid tribute to the work of women in the Good Friday Agreement, which featured what some may have considered the unlikely sight of the Taoiseach quoting Bernadette McAliskey.
"As Bernadette Devlin McAliskey said, the real problem was that women weren’t written out of the history, they were never written into it in the first place," he said.
From there, the Taoiseach's visit brought him across town to Howard University, the city's historically black college, to meet members of the African-American Irish diaspora. According to the African American Irish Diaspora Network, around 38% of African Americans have some Irish heritage, a link which the Taoiseach said he was interested to hear more about.
"We've been exploring the African-American Irish connection which is a strong one and one that a lot of people don't know about, but I think needs to be explored into the future," he said on the lawn of the 156-year-old university, before speaking about another key part of Irish culture — .
He paid tribute to outgoing host Ryan Tubridy and added: " has always been much more than a talk show. It's been part of our culture and an important public service."
Mr Varadkar will, on Friday, meet with US president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris. The Harris meeting will see two people of Indian descent in positions of considerable power meet to celebrate St Patrick's Day — a sign of shifting demographics and of progress.
He will, no doubt, try to avoid making any off-the-cuff remarks to Mr Biden.
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