President Reagan’s bowl of shamrock and the 1,500-year wake

Ryle Dwyer looks back 30 years to Garret Fitzgerald’s St Patrick’s Day State visit to the White House, and its impact on the Northern peace process

When Irish ambassador John J Hearne sent a small box of shamrock to the White House for US president Harry Truman on St Patrick’s Day, 1952, he started a trend. Truman was out of town that day, so the ambassador could not deliver it personally.

President Seán T O’Kelly actually pinned a sprig of shamrock on Truman’s successor, Dwight Eisenhower, in 1959.