By Peter Sorkin
Although U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley's (D-Jackson Heights) family came from Ireland and he has been back to visit some 20 times, he said this visit was special because he was able to return to his family's homeland as a representative of the United States.
“It's interesting that the president wasn't going to make a third trip, and when it came down to it, he asked me to come,” Crowley said in a phone interview on Dec. 14, a day after he arrived back in the United States.
“This is really the first time I had to go back as a member of Congress,” he said. “It's almost very surreal when I'm standing there looking up into the sky and thinking this is really happening.”
Clinton landed in Ireland Dec. 12 for a two-day stay to continue to work on the historic Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which was drafted to end three decades of sectarian violence between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.
Speaking to a crowd of more than 6,000 at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Clinton said he was encouraged by the Irish Republican Army's decision to lay down its arms. Clinton also called for police reform and encouraged the British government to continue with demilitarization.
Crowley said he was moved by the president's words.
“To have that kind of opportunity to be there with him – there are really no words to describe it,” Crowley said. “His speech was just tremendous. He really emphasized that it wasn't about what the leaders of these organizations were doing. It was about what the people were doing to help move this process forward. It was very powerful and he was very warmly received.”
Clinton has a 98 percent approval rating in Ireland, Crowley said, but the congressman was even more impressed with the way Chelsea Clinton and Hillary Clinton handled themselves.
“The first lady was great, but Chelsea really was the star,” he said. “She just wooed them all. She really has developed into a beautiful young lady. She's got charm and class.”
Crowley also had kind words for the president after a speech in Dundalk, which lies just south of Northern Ireland and is five miles from where his grandfather grew up in Stabanon. Crowley's mother is from South Armagh in the North. Crowley said his father, who died when Crowley was young, and his grandfather would be proud of him today.
“It would be meaningful to my father to see the people in that town,” Crowley said. “I felt [Clinton] was speaking to everybody, not just the sheer fact that he was there for the peace process.”
Crowley said he will continue his efforts and the president's efforts to move the peace process along, but warned it can only work if his former countrymen work with their elected officials.
“I think that this is not the first time [the peace process] has hit a stumbling block but the president's trip is helpful to move the process forward,” he said. “I think it really is in the hands of the people. They must not allow their politicians to let it slip back into violence.”
