US: It's John Kerry's party but Hillary Clinton is the star of the moment, reports Conor O'Clery
When starting out in politics, Richard Neal asked a local Italian politician what he needed to know about foreign policy to get elected in Massachusetts.
The answer he got was: "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Ireland must be united, and Trieste belongs to Italy."
The Congressman from Springfield, Massachusetts, recalled this advice at a joint Irish-American and Italian-American convention party in Boston's Park Plaza Hotel - where the Jewish Americans were also represented by satirist Al Franken.
The Irish easily dominated the event with their star speakers, including the well-known non-Irish American, Hillary Rodham Clinton. And they made the event, as always, a tribute to their beloved Clintons.
Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe, recalling that his family came from Banbridge, Co Down, said: "For generations Irish Catholics came to this country seeking justice, and all-too-many ignored the plight of Ireland. Only one president was willing to roll up his sleeves and get in the muck, and there would never be a Good Friday accord without William Jefferson Clinton."
Gesturing towards Hillary Clinton, he went on to describe her as "the greatest senator on Capitol Hill", which prompted Al Franken to ask in a stage whisper: "What about John Kerry?" McAuliffe, deftly recovering, replied: "He's going to the White House."
It was almost as an afterthought, however, that the chairman of the Democratic Party urged the delegates to "work our backsides off" to elect the Democratic nominee, John Kerry, and "send George Bush back to corporate Texas".
Hillary Clinton was introduced by Stella O'Leary, national chair of Irish American Democrats, as "Ireland's best-loved senator, who together with President Clinton is the best friend Ireland ever had in the White House." That brought the house down.
Hillary had a dig at George Bush's political legitimacy. "We can't go through what we did last time," she said. "This time the person who wins the election is going to live in the White House."
Richard Neal, with Mrs Clinton beside him, paid tribute to Joe Cahill, the Belfast IRA leader who died last week, as "one of the great patriots" in Irish history.
"He was the hardest man you might ever have met, and an acknowledged member of the IRA but he ended his life by adopting conventional politics."
For that, he said, "we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Bill and Hillary Clinton for their role in resolving one of the longest political disputes in the history of the world". Bush-bashing is discouraged on the convention floor but it's different at off-campus parties, and here Terence O'Sullivan, head of the Labourers' Union, drew cheers when he invoked guidance from above, that St Patrick, "who drove the snakes out of Ireland would drive the Bushes out of the White House".
Another prominent guest of the Irish Americans was also not ethnic Irish, despite her name and surname. Peggy Kerry, sister of the Democratic nominee, had a Jewish grandfather, Fritz Kohn, who changed his name to Frederick Kerry before emigrating from Austria a century ago. She told me afterwards the family legend that the new name was chosen by spinning a pencil on a map - which ended up pointing to Co Kerry.
Kerry was also an Austrian name, she said. In Vienna, she had looked up the telephone directory and found a long list of people named "Kerry". She suggested that the explanation was that a lot of Irish Catholics fleeing the Famine went to the Catholic Austrian empire.
On stage Mrs Clinton winced at some of Al Franken's risqué humour. Introduced as Al O'Franken, he related - to raucous laughter - how that he was married for 28 years to an Irish American Catholic whom he "deflowered and got to denounce the Pope".
As the Irish speakers left, they were replaced by Italian Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, Democrat minority leader in the House of Representatives. Elsewhere Boston's most important Irish American public servant, police commissioner Kathleen O'Toole, was attending a party for the New York delegation along with John Kerry's other sister, Diane.
Edward Kennedy, the honorary chairman of the convention, and the most important real Irish American senator, was at the Massachusetts party in Boston Public Library.
Many delegates ignored the parties for the baseball game between the Red Sox and the New York Yankees where John Kerry made a surprise appearance. He was not due in Boston until tomorrow, but diverted his campaign plane en route from Ohio to Florida to come to Boston and throw in the opening pitch.