Democrats and guests gather at Celtic Tavern

On the small stage at Denver’s Celtic Tavern Tuesday evening, the Irish-American Democrats’ Stella O’Leary brought on Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and AFL-CIO leader John Sweeney to rally the troops.

O’Malley, alluding to this year’s ticket, said that African-American/Irish bonds go back to the friendship between Frederick Douglass and Daniel O’Connell in the 19th century.

The evening's more formal aspects, though, were kept to a minimum, and most of the talk took place over drinks.

Fine Gael’s Nora Owen told me she thought Hillary’s speech was “stunning.” She did all she needed to do. “She can’t be blamed if the Democrats lose the election,” said the former minister for justice.

(Earlier, at the convention hall, I heard a party supporter, a 60-something white male with a pronounced Southern accent, say at the end of the speech: “That oughtta shut ‘em up.” I presumed he was referring to recalcitrant Clinton supporters. The same man said earlier: “That Biden: he’ll chew out McCain like a dog on a bone.”)

Owen, who is a grandniece of Michael Collins, was also very impressed with Michelle Obama’s speech on Monday night. “She’s a fine woman,” she said. And like most Irish and Irish-American visitors I spoke to, she regarded Ted Kennedy’s moving speech as a convention highlight.

Eamon Gilmore, the leader of the Irish Labor Party, is attending his first U.S.
political convention. He agreed that it’s a rather different experience from his party’s annual conferences back home. But if the European Union’s socialists got together, it would be an event on a similar scale. And he revealed it could happen. The socialist party leaders, who meet regularly, have discussed the possibility of a gathering of the Continent’s mainstream left.

It was love rather than politics that brought Tallaght’s Shay Dunne to Denver two decades ago. His late wife was a native Coloradan. Dunne, who learnt his hurling at home in Dublin, is active in the local GAA. He said that the NACB championships held in the city four years ago were considered one of the most successful ever. “We showed them how to do it,” Dunne said.