| Summary/Abstract |
Scholars have extensively documented the vital role of the Clinton administration in the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process.1 However, Clinton’s intervention in Northern Ireland was not the first by a U.S. president. That came two decades earlier, with the Carter administration. Carter’s brief foray into Northern Ireland politics was obviously more limited than Clinton’s lengthy engagement, and is also less celebrated. This is understandable given the direct role that Clinton, and more particularly his envoy to Northern Ireland, Senator George Mitchell, played in brokering the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), which underpins the peaceful settlement that the region still enjoys today. But in some ways Carter’s role can be seen as more significant than, or certainly foundational to, Clinton’s efforts. Carter’s intervention came during the Cold War, which had an indirect effect on Northern Ireland.2 Despite significant agitation from Irish America, successive U.S. administrations refused to comment on Northern Ireland, deeming it a purely internal affair—and often a matter of considerable international embarrassment—of the British government, Washington’s key ally in a Cold War context.
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