By Tal Kopan, Boston Globe
WASHINGTON — US lawmakers on Tuesday heartily welcomed the British monarch, King Charles III, as he addressed a joint meeting of Congress.It was a first for Springfield Representative Richard Neal, who boycotted the last monarch’s address to Congress in 1991.
Neal, then in his second term in Congress, was part of a group of Irish-Catholic lawmakers who protested the speech by Queen Elizabeth II over British policy in Northern Ireland. The group included several other members of the Massachusetts delegation, including former Representatives Joseph P. Kennedy II, Joe Early, and Brian Donnelly, according to Neal and Globe reports. Other members of Congress were absent over objections to apartheid in South Africa.
Though it was only a handful of lawmakers, Neal remembers the decision to skip the Queen’s speech being controversial, but one he and other Irish-Americans found necessary. Neal told the Globe that at the time, there was violence and tens of thousands of British troops stationed in Northern Ireland, a decades-long period of sectarian conflict known as “The Troubles”.
“There was the longest-standing political dispute in the history of the Western world, and there seemed to be no inclination by the U.K. to address the issue,” Neal said.
Massachusetts had a sizable role in the protest, in part because the state is one of the most heavily Irish in the country. Neal also noted the state’s prominent role in the revolution that won America’s independence from the British monarchy.
But the situation changed dramatically in the years after the Queen’s visit. Under the presidency of Bill Clinton, Neal helped work on the Good Friday Agreement, the 1998 treaty between the United Kingdom and Ireland that settled the conflict and established today’s political system in Northern Ireland. Neal recalls being part of a group that would go to the embassy to negotiate, meetings he called “bombastic” but eventually successful.
Now, Neal sees the King’s visit as a mark of progress, including the fact that the visit is to commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence from Britain. Though he says more questions remain about the future of Ireland, he still takes pride in America’s role in helping to broker the end of the long British-Irish conflict.
“It’s a remarkable achievement,” Neal said. “There’s great personal satisfaction that we can all take, that America’s role was so significant.”
