A New Irish Citizen

NOTRE Dame, Indiana — As you drive up the main entrance to the most storied college in America, the golden dome shimmers like a summer mirage directly in front of you. Off to the left Touchdown Jesus on the wall of the Hesburgh Library overlooking the football stadium raises his arms in victory, and the home of the Fighting Irish comes alive.

It is my first time being here on a non-football weekend, and it certainly seems a different place. The crowds gathering at the Grotto, the overflow of students and families in every nook and cranny are replaced by empty quadrangles and a biting winter wind that chases solitary figures quickly indoors.

I am heading for the Hesburgh Library called after the much loved president of Notre Dame for 35 years, Father Ted Hesburgh. It is a very special occasion.

The Tanaiste (Deputy Leader) of Ireland, Michael McDowell, came to the campus on Tuesday, January 9, to bestow full Irish citizenship on Donald Keough, former head of Coca-Cola and the closest thing to a chieftain of the clan that Irish America has produced.

Also there, in a rare public appearance, is Hesburgh himself, now touching 90 and one of the most famous academics in American history. Not only did he transform Notre Dame, but his work on the first ever civil rights commission convened by President Eisenhower, and subsequently on issues such as immigration reform and nuclear proliferation for the U.S. government, marked him as one of the great public servants of his age.

He points out in his opening remarks that Keough has quite simply been magnificent when it comes to promoting his twin loves of Notre Dame and his Irish heritage. As a former chairman of the board at Notre Dame Keough was their greatest fundraiser ever, helping transform the campus.

On Ireland Keough has been no less special. Before the Celtic Tiger was popular or fashionable he located a huge Coca-Cola plant in Ireland which was a godsend to the country. Keough was a trailblazer, and hundreds of American firms have followed.

The Notre Dame ceremony was a nice recognition by the Irish government of the role that one man has played in getting the tiger up and running and helping transform the Irish economy. Keough, of course, will also remain an American citizen.

For decades now he has been counselor, mentor and advisor to numerous Irish American businessmen who have become involved in Ireland.

In his remarks McDowell pointed out that Ireland has only 1% of the population of Europe, yet somehow has managed to snag 20% of the American investment. I wager Don Keough, more than any other person, has played the largest role in helping secure many of those firms.

This is the man, after all, who invited a few friends along to Ireland during a typical trip in the mid 1990s. That was how Bill Gates and Warren Buffett first came to set eyes on the Emerald Isle and become involved there.

Over the years there have been dozens of such pilgrimages by Keough and his associates, all with the long-term plan of winning friends and influence for Ireland.

On the Notre Dame campus, however, sits Keough’s lasting Irish legacy. The Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, named after Keough and his wife Mickie, and Irish businessman Martin Naughton and wife Carmel, has transformed the field of Irish studies in America in a way that will have profound influence for generations.

Amazingly, the home of the Fighting Irish had minimal academic links to Ireland until Keough decided to change things in 1992. The result was the institute, headed by famed Irish academic Seamus Deane of Field Day fame, and Professor Christopher Fox.

Next academic year there will be up to 500 students taking Irish studies at the university, an incredible number given the facts that just a few years ago no such program existed.

In addition, many of those students will find themselves studying for a semester or so in Ireland, an invaluable opportunity for both Ireland and Notre Dame to get to know each other better.

The potential for the future is enormous as Notre Dame and Keough continue to ramp up their involvement in Ireland, including purchasing historic O’Connell House in Merrion Square to house their Irish campus.

It is so very fitting that Keough — whose Irish roots go back to great grandparents, thereby making him ineligible for citizenship — received the ultimate accolade from the Irish government last week of citizenship. There is no Irish American who deserves it more, as McDowell pointed out.