The Clinton Factor

The fact the President's daughter chose Northern Ireland as her topic is an indicator of how much the peace process came to mean to the Clinton family. Twenty-four years after the Good Friday Agreement, during a visit to Belfast, Chelsea Clinton remembered her dad getting regular updates on the Northern Ireland talks as they were progressing. ‘The swelling possibility’ peace might become a reality in Northern Ireland, Chelsea recalled, ‘had a profound impact on me as a kid’.

When ‘the Troubles’ were at their height in the 1970s and 80s, US Presidents occasionally expressed hopes for an end to the bloodshed. But with the Cold War at its height, the US State Department always advised the White House to stay out of the complex internal affairs of their most important ally, the UK.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, though, there was the possibility that calculation could change. In April 1992 Bill Clinton's Irish American supporters believed the cycle of violence known as ‘the Troubles’ could be broken by showing the IRA much more would be achieved through peaceful politics than bombs and bullets. Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams had been banned from visiting the USA due to continuing IRA violence, and one concession the Irish American Democrats thought could be important was the offer of a temporary short-term visa.

During the New York primary campaign, Clinton was asked at an Irish American meeting if he would consider granting just such a visa. The candidate said yes. Two years later Clinton, now the President, made good on his campaign promise. The British Prime Minister, John Major, was furious. He believed the move was ill advised and premature, given the IRA's violent campaign. But Adams got the visa and made a short lived but high-profile trip to New York in January 1994.

Seven months later, in August 1994, the IRA declared a ‘complete cessation of military operations’. The ceasefire vindicated Bill Clinton's visa decision.

The newfound peace set the scene for Clinton's ground-breaking visit to Northern Ireland in November 1995, the first by a serving US President. The President turned on the Belfast Christmas tree lights and addressed enthusiastic crowds in Belfast, Derry and Armagh with a simple message: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’.

Clinton later described his time in Ireland as ‘the best two days of my presidency’. He was impressed by the people he met, in particular the primary schoolchildren, David Sterrett and Catherine Hamill, who introduced him at a factory in West Belfast. Catherine read out a handwritten letter to the President revealing that ‘my first Daddy died during the troubles. It was the saddest day of my life’.

Catherine’s letter continued, ‘now it is nice and peaceful. I like having peace and quiet for a change instead of people shooting and killing. My Christmas wish is that peace and love will last in Ireland forever’.

Despite the emotional impact of the President’s visit, the peace process remained fragile and just two months later the IRA returned to violence with a massive bomb attack at Canary Wharf in London’s Docklands. It took exceptionally skilful diplomacy by a new British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Irish counterpart, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and President Clinton's Special Envoy, Senator George Mitchell, to get things back on track.

With the IRA ceasefire restored in July 1997, Senator Mitchell injected urgency into the peace talks he was chairing ahead of an April 1998 deadline. President Clinton told Tony Blair there was nothing more important to him as the marathon negotiations reached their climax. The President stayed up overnight making transatlantic phone calls at key moments to the different parties to urge them to overcome a range of stumbling blocks.

The President was delighted by the successful negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, telling reporters he hoped it would set a precedent for other conflicts like the Middle East. However, he decided not to visit Northern Ireland during the referendum campaign on the deal, believing such a trip might give anti-agreement politicians like Ian Paisley ammunition to attack him as an outsider telling voters what to do.

When the President did return in September 1998 the mood wasn't celebratory, as the dissident Real IRA, a splinter group from the IRA, bombed the County Tyrone market town of Omagh. The car bomb killed 29 people, including the mother of unborn twins. A sombre President Clinton visited the scene to express his condolences.

Back in the USA, the 42nd President's public standing was taking a dive due to the scandal around the impeachment charges he was facing, triggered by his affair with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. He remained engaged in Northern Ireland affairs, but his interventions had less impact than earlier in his presidency.

After leaving office, Bill Clinton visited Northern Ireland several times, including in 2001 when he was accompanied by his daughter Chelsea (the same year Chelsea submitted her Stanford University thesis).

In 2023 the former President was one of several VIP guests who attended a gala dinner at Hillsborough Castle, together with Hillary Clinton.

During that 2023 visit, which marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, President Clinton urged Northern Ireland's politicians to show the same spirit of compromise John Hume and David Trimble (the architects of the agreement, both Nobel prize winners) had demonstrated back in 1998. ‘You can always find an excuse to say no,’ Clinton told his audience. ‘Getting to yes is humanity's great goal.’