Will Trump host the Taoiseach on SPD in the Oval Office?
PDX HIBERNIAN INDEPENDENT Volume Two - Number Forty-Five - 20 February 2025
More than an email. Less than a newspaper. Delivered early on the first and third Thursday morning of every month. Published by The Portland Hibernian Society.
A chara. Twenty-six days until Saint Patrick’s Day.
MEETING TONIGHT. SIX PM KELLS RESTAURANT. AN UNLIKELY IRISHMAN.
Meet Doctor John McLoughlin and find out how he earned the title: Father of Oregon. Sure, he had an explosive Irish temper and made some enemies when he essentially ruled the Oregon Country as Chief Factor for the Hudson's Bay Co. at Fort Vancouver. But his hospitality, humanity and Celtic charisma shaped our history here in the Pacific Northwest. “The firm mouth and long upper lip betrayed the Scotchman while the hearty laugh and ready wit proclaimed the Hibernian half of him.” Hibernian John Bradach Sr. will portray this legendary Oregonian. NO HOST DINNER AT SIX PM. PRESENTATION AT SEVEN PM.
SAVE THE DATE: HIBERNIAN BANQUET MARCH 8
It’s not a minute too soon to set aside the evening of Saturday, March 8 for the 26th annual Hibernian Saint Patrick Day Banquet at Kells. We’re proud this year to host two mainstays of the Irish music and dance scene here in Greater Portland: Peter and Breda Yeates. Hibernian Daniel Curran caught up with the two of them recently and sent this profile to the PDX Hibernian Independent. To reserve a place at the banquet for yourself and all the others you’d like to bring along, simply reply to this email. Subject: Banquet.
IRISH CENTRAL OREGON. A TRIBUTE TO FATHER LUKE FROM CORK
In Bend, he’s known for building Saint Charles Hospital and Saint Francis Church and School. And for standing up to the Ku Klux Klan when no one else would 103 years ago next month. He's Father Luke Sheehan and like esteemed Portland Hibernian Peter Cullen, he was born in County Cork and entered the Capuchin Franciscan Order in Ireland. A profile of Father Luke was published the other day and there’s a video too. And yes, Father Luke’s Room at McMenamin’s Old St. Francis School is a total tribute to this son of Erin who came to Oregon in 1910.
LATEST: WILL IRELAND’S LEADERS BE INVITED TO THE WHITE HOUSE ON MARCH 17?
Will he, or won’t he? Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. It’s been a guessing game whether President Trump will continue the tradition of meeting with Ireland’s Taoiseach in the Oval Office on Saint Patrick’s Day. As of this morning 2.20.25 at 0500 hours here on the West Coast, we still don’t know. The meeting of the President and the Taoiseach is a ritual that goes back decades. The latest possible snag has nothing to do with trade or Palestine or Ukraine or past visits on March 17. (See photo caption.) This just in. The Irish Examiner says the tradition may be a victim of domestic politics in the US and the possibility of a government shutdown. “Concerns have now been raised around the optics of having a St Patrick’s Day party in the White House if thousands of federal employees are left without pay..." The symbolism and significance of this visit in terms of US-Ireland relations is such that the PDX HI will send you an update as soon as a decision is announced. To subscribe to the PDX Hibernian Independent send an email to Tarcisius53@hotmail.com.
White House, March 16, 2017. President Trump's first traditional St. Patrick's Day meeting. Taoiseach Enda Keny ruffled a few feathers.
IRISH ROOTS AND THE OVAL OFFICE
The Hibernian Independent hopes you had a pleasant President’s Day. It was about the time that JFK fully embraced his Irish heritage that America woke up to the fact so many occupants of the White House could trace their roots back to an island off of an island. Most of the 23 Irishmen were of Protestant stock; only two (JFK and Biden) came from the Catholic tradition in Ireland. Interestingly, Richard Nixon was descended from Irish Quakers on his mom’s side.
A majority of US Presidents have roots in Ireland.
NEUTRALITY IN A TRADE WAR? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT
Like it or not, Ireland’s going to be in the trenches of any trade war that breaks out. This whole drama over a Saint Patrick’s Day visit shouldn’t obscure the fact that Ireland exports a lot more product to the United States than U.S companies sell to Ireland. So, the latest report on robust exports is a good news/bad news situation. Fortune Magazine reports, “within the strong export data is a reminder of Ireland’s increasingly complicated relationship with the U.S. “ One weight loss drug alone has a lot to do with the surplus, “Eli Lilly’s launch of GLP-1 weight loss medication Zepbound, which it produces from a Cork site, could well explain much of the drastic €18.6 billion ($19.4 billion) increase in Irish goods exports to the States last year.”
IRISH THEATRE IN PORTLAND
Corrib Theatre’s latest production at the Historic Albert House isn’t an Irish play, but it’s based on one. pass over by Antoinette Nwandu is described by one New York critic as an “85-minute riff on Waiting for Godot” and by Variety as "a surreal and morbidly funny existential drama.... (featuring) two characters who might be fugitives from a Samuel Beckett play." Pass over runs until March 9.
IFTA AWARDS er IRISH OSCARS
Cillian Murphy (of course), Saoirse Ronan, Colin Farrell, Colm Meaney, Say Nothing, Kneecap and Bad Sisters. The envelopes were opened at the Irish Film and Television Awards over the weekend. The award for Best Picture went to Small Things Like These, which didn’t find a lot of love from American audiences but is as heartbreaking as the book of the same name. The actors playing the Say Nothing sisters won awards as well.
BANSHEES OF INISHERIN MEET SUPER BOWL LIX
“Oh, that’s definitely the West of Ireland. And that’s the Garda’s son who Colin Farrell was friends with,” was one of the comments when the ad with Barry Keoghan ran in the first half of the game. “But what’s he advertising?” was another. See for yourself.
TIMELY QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It’s fitting that we gather here each year to celebrate St Patrick and his legacy. He, too, of course, was an immigrant. And though he is, of course, the patron saint of Ireland, for many people around the globe, he is also a symbol of, indeed, the patron of immigrants.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny in the Oval Office – March 16, 2017, not long after the newly-elected 45th President had issued his travel ban.
AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT KELLS
Bill Gallagher
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