The US-Ireland Relationship with Trina Vargo

Trina Vargo is the president of the US-Ireland Alliance, an organization she founded in 1998. From late 1987 until April 1998, she was employed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy and served as his foreign policy adviser during the critical years of the Northern Ireland peace process. Trina is the author of Shenanigans.

Vargo created the US-Ireland Alliance to build ties between the US and the island of Ireland for future generations. She also established the George J. Mitchell Scholarship program, which sends future American leaders to institutions of higher learning in Ireland for a year of graduate study. Nearly 300 Americans apply annually for one of the 12 prestigious scholarships. Vargo also created the annual Oscar Wilde Awards to honor the Irish in entertainment. The annual event is currently held at J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company in Santa Monica, and Vargo has played an essential role in encouraging film production in Ireland, including the filming of STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS.

Working directly with political leaders in Northern Ireland, the Clinton Administration, and the Irish Government, Vargo served as a key behind-the-scenes player in the Northern Ireland peace process, including the granting of a visa for Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to visit the US in 1994. That visa was central to the subsequent IRA cease-fire and the peace talks, which led to the 1998 Belfast Agreement. As a foreign policy adviser to Kennedy, Vargo’s wide-ranging portfolio included imposing sanctions on Libya following the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight103; spear-heading the efforts to bring free and fair elections to Guyana in 1992; changing the way the State Department analyzed United Nations voting patterns which impacted on foreign aid eligibility; and getting Jews out of the Soviet Union and Syria, and Americans out of China after Tiananmen Square.

In this episode, Trina shares her three points on the US-Ireland relationship:

1. The George J. Mitchell Scholarship program
2.  Connecting Hollywood to Ireland
3. The change in the relationship between the US and Ireland

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