All Blacks or Black and Tans?

President Biden’s Visits to United Kingdom and Ireland Must Serve Prosperity and Peace, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #5311, April 6, 2023. "President Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement comes at a crucial time. Northern Ireland’s governing institutions have been badly damaged by the European Union’s vindictive approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol, negotiated as part of the U.K.’s exit from the EU. In practice, the EU values its Customs Union far more than it values the Good Friday Agreement, and despite U.S. praise for the Agreement, the U.S. has backed the EU’s approach. The President should avoid making things worse, reject the half-truths and mythologies on which U.S. praise for the Agreement is often based, and focus on deliverables, especially a free trade area with the U.K."

Will Ireland Go Bankrupt?

President Obama Visits the Irish Financial Crisis, with J.D. Foster, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3266, May 20, 2011. "When President Obama visits Ireland on May 23–24, he is expected to visit Moneygall, in County Offaly, the ancestral home of his mother’s family. While finding Irish ancestors is a favorite electoral sport of American leaders, the President would be better advised to spend his time studying the Irish financial crisis, which has important lessons for America. If this crisis continues to deepen, the U.S. may be compelled to consider the implications of an Irish default. If default becomes inevitable, then the U.S. should not simply take the side of European institutions if doing so would uselessly prolong the crisis."

If At First You Don't Succeed, Vote, Vote Again

Vote Until You Get It Right: Ireland and the E.U., Redux, New Ledger, October 1, 2009. "The European Union Constitution, now gussied up as the Lisbon Treaty, is a remarkable document. Napoleon famously remarked that constitutions should be short and obscure. On that count, the Constitution scores one out of two: it is not short, but it is definitely obscure. What Napoleon curiously failed to appreciate was that length, if carried on for long enough, has an obscurity all its own. At 246 pages in its original form, and a svelte 248 pages as the Lisbon Treaty, the Constitution achieves a comprehensive triumph over comprehensibility."

The EU's Constitution, and the American One

Constitutions, Good and Bad, Contentions, September 18, 2009. "The U.S. Constitution was signed 222 years ago yesterday. But for all the reverence with which the Constitution is treated, Constitution Day isn’t one of the higher-visibility federal holidays. Perhaps that’s because, for most Americans, holidays are days on which you don’t have to go to work. Or perhaps it’s because, until 2004, the day was known—to the few who had heard of it—as Citizenship Day."