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16th National Gala And Presentation Of Awards 2008

Under The Honorary Patronage of
An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, The Prime Minister Of Ireland

Honorary Chairs
H.E. Michael Collins, Embassy of Ireland
H.E. Thomas C. Foley, U.S. Embassy to Ireland
Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Embassy of Great Britain

Kingsley Aikins, CEO, The American Ireland Fund

Gala Chair
Gerald S. J. Cassidy

Dinner Chairs
Hon. Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, Phillip D. Brady, Thomas A. Corcoran, Susan A. Davis, Dennis M. Lucey, John J. McDonnell, Jr. Eugene M. McQuade, George G. Moore, Hon. Jack Quinn, Paul S. Quinn, Mark H. Tuohey

The Leadership Award
• The Honorable Jack Reed  more >
U.S. Senate

• The Honorable Edward J. Markey  more >
U.S. House of Representatives

• The Honorable Christopher Smith more >
U.S. House of Representatives

• Past Honorees 1993-2008 >

Mistress of Ceremonies
Norah O'Donnell

For more information or to purchase a table or tickets
T - 301-229-0064
E - aifgala@oneillevent.com

The Honorable Jack Reed

Jack Reed was fashioned by his family and the U.S. military. With forebears who hailed from Counties Cavan and Roscommon, Jack grew up in a working-class family in Cranston, Rhode Island. Reed’s father, Joseph, was a school janitor who worked his way up to became custodial supervisor of the city’s school system. When he died in 1982, a conference room at the administrative building was named for him. Reed announced his first Senate run in that room.

Mary Louise Monahan, Reed’s mother, had the grades but lacked the opportunity to attend college. She insisted that her three children go to college, and they all did.

Jack Reed’s family taught him the values of hard work, integrity, and commitment. When he was just 12 years old, Reed declared his intention to attend the U.S. Military Academy. Always one to follow his words with action, Reed graduated from West Point in 1971. After receiving an active duty commission in the United States Army, Reed attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he received a Masters of Public Policy. Reed, an Army Ranger and a paratrooper, served in the 82nd Airborne Division as an Infantry Platoon leader, a Company Commander, and a Battalion Staff Officer. He returned to West Point in 1978 as an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences.

Reed resigned from the Army as a Captain in 1979 and enrolled at Harvard Law School. After graduating, he joined Rhode Island’s largest law firm, Edwards and Angell, and in 1984 won a seat in the state Senate. Six years later, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. As a fairly junior member of Congress, he was able to secure $180 million in federal loan guarantees to pay off depositors during the state’s credit-union and banking crisis in the 1990s. Regarded as serious and thoughtful, Reed handily won Claiborne Pell’s seat in the U.S. Senate when Pell announced his retirement in 1996.

A member of the prestigious Senate Appropriations and Armed Services Committees, Reed is also a senior member on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. His position on these committees has enabled him to boost funding for children’s health and immunization programs; create a program that has provided nearly $100 million for America’s school libraries to ensure students have greater access to quality educational resources; and increase financial aid resources for college students.

Time magazine described Reed as “a serious, intellectually honest veteran and an expert on defense issues in the Senate.” Last year, as acting Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, Reed succeeded in passing the largest budget in the history of the VA.

Senator Reed is also well regarded by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle on military matters. Working with Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who referred to Reed as “one of the most effective voices in the Senate on defense and national security,” he successfully increased the permanent size of the Army. Reed has said that his military training and service give him an appreciation for the military’s power and its limits. In 2002, he voted against giving President Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq. However, once our combat forces were committed, Reed has consistently urged the President to better manage the war and provide our troops with the resources they need. He has traveled to Iraq 11 times to get a firsthand look at the situation on the ground. Along with Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, Reed is the co-author of a plan to refocus the mission in Iraq and begin the phased redeployment of U.S. forces.

Senator Reed traveled to Ireland with President Clinton in 2000, and visited Dublin, Dundalk, and Belfast. During this trip, he met with the Taoiseach, Prime Minister Blair, and members of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He follows developments on the island of Ireland closely and welcomed First Minister Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness to the U.S. Capitol when they visited last December.

In keeping with his interest in education, he has worked with Civic Link, an exchange program for young people from the Republic and Northern Ireland; Project Children; and the George Mitchell Fellowship.

And, of course, he is a supporter of The American Ireland Fund. Recently, many in the news media have begun speculating that Reed may be tapped as a potential Democratic Vice Presidential nominee or Secretary of Defense. Reed has acknowledged that those possibilities are very flattering, but has strongly stated that “I have no intention to seek it or even, if offered it, to accept,” adding that he already has “an incredibly important job, now, as the United States Senator representing the people of Rhode Island.”

Jack Reed is married to Julia Hart Reed. They make their home in Jamestown, Rhode Island with their one-year old daughter Emily.

The Honorable Edward J. Markey

Ed, his wife (Dr. Susan Blumethal) in front of the Markey family farm, Monaghan, Ireland Honorees Using technology to reduce his own carbon footprint, Chairman Markey became the first Member of Congress to deliver an international address using ‘Second Life’, a virtual alter ego, at the UN Climate Conference in Bali. This digital device is something Chairman Markey intends to utilize in the near future to discuss telecommunications and climate initiatives with his Irish colleague and friend, Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Minister, Eamon Ryan, T.D.

In addition to his new energy independence and climate change responsibilities, Congressman Markey continues to serve as Chairman of the intellectually demanding House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, in charge of ensuring our telecommunications policies continue to spur technological innovation, competition, consumer choice, and privacy protection.

Described by Stephen Brobeck, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of America, as “the greatest champion of consumers in the Congress“, Markey has been instrumental in breaking up anti-consumer, anti-innovative monopolies in electricity, long-distance and local telephone service, cable television, and international satellite services.

More recently he has fought for legislation to protect transparency and consumer rights on the Internet. Congressman Markey is also a national leader on human rights, most recently as the lead author of legislation to prevent prisoners captured in the war on terrorism from being sent overseas to be tortured. It is a bill which Amnesty International has called a “critically important piece of legislation” that would “go a long way towards reestablishing the United States’ reputation as a nation that leads the world on human rights.”

Ed Markey relishes his Irish roots and follows developments in Ireland closely. He traveled to Ireland with President Clinton in 1995 on a trip that took him to Dublin, Derry, and Belfast. Returning the next year on a personal trip to the ‘stony grey soil’ of Monaghan, the home territory of the Markeys, and to County Kerry, where he discovered some 20 first and second cousins on his mother’s side of the family in the Waterville area.

Congressman Markey was born in Malden, Massachusetts on July 11, 1946. He attended Immaculate Conception Grammar School, Malden Catholic High School and is a proud graduate of Boston College (B.A., 1968) and Boston College Law School (J.D., 1972). He was elected to the Massachusetts State House where he served two terms in the General Court. He was named “Legislator of the Year” by the Massachusetts Bar Association after passing a court reform bill banning judges from representing clients in front of fellow judges. He is married to Dr. Susan Blumenthal.

The Honorable Christopher Smith

Now in his 14th term in Congress, U.S. Representative Chris Smith is one of the most senior members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the dean of the New Jersey delegation.

First elected in 1980 at the age of 27, Smith, who turns 54 on March 4th, represents New Jersey’s Fourth Congressional District in central New Jersey. His devotion to principle and his reputation for tending to constituent problems have made him very popular in his district. Smith’s legislative and constituent service agenda is born out of his faith. He often cites Matthew 25 saying “Christ said whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, you do likewise to me.” It has been the cornerstone and motivating factor in his congressional portfolio indicated by his leadership and work on pro-life issues, increasing healthcare and benefits for veterans as well as child health programs, fighting for human rights of the oppressed throughout the world, protecting woman and children caught up in sextrade, supporting living wage and worker protections and helping to ensure a safe and clean environment.

A senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Ranking Republican of the Committee’s Africa and Global Health Subcommittee, he also serves as Ranking member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission) and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Hardworking, dedicated, tenacious and idealistic, the former Chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Human Rights and Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Smith convened more than 300 hearings analyzing human rights in Romania, Vietnam, China, the Sudan, Cuba, Ethiopia, the Congo and elsewhere. Additionally, he continues to play a key role in promoting religious freedom throughout the world.

His focus on human rights includes Northern Ireland. He held the first-ever hearing on human rights abuses committed there. Since then, he has chaired a dozen hearings condemning paramilitary violence, discrimination against Catholics, and police brutality as fundamental causes of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. He has led multiple human rights and pro-life missions to Ireland, including visits to the Castlereagh holding center and the Maze prison. Smith is the prime author of several bills and amendments condemning violence and promoting peace and justice in Northern Ireland. The best-known was an amendment suspending U.S. support and exchanges with the British police force in Northern Ireland, until standards were set to weed out any officers who engaged in human rights abuses. In 2001, President Bush certified that human rights standards were being met and the police exchanges resumed.

Early in the current Congress, the House and Senate unanimously approved Smith’s measure calling on the British government to deliver on their commitment to implement a public, independent, judicial inquiry into the murder of human rights attorney, Patrick Finucane. The issue of possible collusion in the Finucane murder, as well as the murder of Rosemary Nelson, another Northern Ireland defense attorney, has been the subject of many of Smith’s hearings. Smith has also been a strong backer in Congress of increasing the U.S. commitment to the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), and he has also authored legislation to expand and improve the work of the IFI so that it can finance more cross-community and reconciliation programs as well as business development programs.

In 2001, Smith, along with Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), co-founded the House Autism Caucus. That caucus met with representatives of all the Northern Ireland parties and the two groups signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding to secure better data on autism, better services for autism patients and improved autism training at institutions of higher learning.

A former chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Smith authored 13 laws to expand veterans programs and benefits in the areas of healthcare, housing, widows’ benefits, postservice employment and assistance to homeless veterans. He is also the author of the landmark “Veterans Education and Benefits Expansion Act of 2001,” which increased funding to the GI Bill by 60 percent. The VFW, American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and Military Order of the Purple Heart have all honored him for his steadfast efforts to improve and enhance veterans programs.

In addition to his work on human rights, veterans and autism, Smith has authored legislation and serves as Co-Chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Alzheimer’s Task Force and Congressional Spina Bifida Caucus. He also Co-Chairs the bipartisan Congressional Pro Life Caucus. Smith, a native of Rahway, New Jersey, graduated from Trenton State College (now the College of New Jersey) where he met his wife, the former Marie Hahn of South Amboy. The couple, who have four children, became new grandparents this past November.

The Smith’s trace their Irish heritage to Counties Clare and Cork, where reportedly everyone looks like Chris’ grandfather.