IRISH-American groups have worked tirelessly this year in support of the Irish-American Presidential Forum. The idea is that whoever becomes the next president of the US should first have been anointed by Americans of Irish descent, writes Walter Ellis
John Dearie, the forum organiser, representing the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Ladies' AOH and the Irish American Unity Conference ("working for justice and peace in a reunited Ireland") was not optimistic that front-runner Barack Obama would show up at a rally in New York. "It is, however, being impressed upon his campaign that he would be speaking to all of Irish America," he told the Irish Echo.
Dearie me. Why does he bother? Most Irish-Americans I meet - and I'm not talking here about recent immigrants - know little or nothing about the reality of modern Ireland. They enjoy an occasional come-all-ye, when they shed a tear over the Fields of Athenry, and they absolutely love the idea that the "Ra" kicked the Brits out of the Old Country - a place they know from mainly from The Quiet Man and The Commitments.
Some - Mr Dearie among them - are obsessed with the idea of a "special relationhip" between America and Ireland. They believe that blood ties should be used to gain long-term economic advantage and preferential treatment for Irish immigrants.
But most Irish-Americans - the ones who drink green beer on St Patrick's Day and think that the Irish invented tartan and bagpipes - haven't a clue.
The prevailing Irish-American view of Ireland was fixed 50 years ago at a time when Dev was getting ready to move into the Park and old Mrs Clancy was still gathering yarn for her sons' woolly jumpers. More recently, romanticised accounts of the Troubles have perpetuated the myth of an oppressed people, mired in injustice - which is why the idea of Martin McGuinness sitting down in government with Ian Paisley was more resented in the Bronx than it ever was in Belfast.
It's all a cod. The "reality" is a bar on Second Avenue, called something like O'Brien's, or Muldoon's, or Flanagan's. Inside, half-hidden in the gloom, are reproductions of old posters, like the one showing a workman with a carthorse on his shoulders beneath the legend "Guinness is Good for You", or that 1980s art-house favourite, "Doors of Dublin". Crudely rendered shamrocks are painted on the mirrors. The shelves feature bottles of Crock O'Gold and Green Leprechaun whiskey. The bar menu offers shepherd's pie, made with ground beef, and "authentic" Dublin coddle. Above the bar, next to the warning that credit will only be extended to those aged 100 and above provided they are accompanied by both parents, is a shillelagh and a photograph of the Pope and JFK.
And, God help us, that's about as real as it gets. The bartender may well be called Seamus, from Mullingar or Cavan, but the music blaring out of the speakers is likely to be vintage Bruce Springsteen and most of the drink consumed will be Miller Lite or Bud. The talk is not of the All-Ireland, or Munster versus Leinster. Instead, what's on TV (with New Yorkers barely concealing their contempt) is the Phillies versus the Dodgers, while what punters really want to know is can the Giants do it again and win back-to-back Super Bowls.
There's nothing wrong with any of this. I'm part of it. And there's nothing wrong with the myth. The myth has given us Michael Flatley and Riverdance.
If you want to buy a Céad Míle Fáilte brass door-plaque, or a four-leaf clover key-chain, or a Claddagh door-knocker, be my guest. It's the notion that Irish-American ancestry confers "special" access and political privilege that gets my goat, sure as my name isn't Paddy McGinty.
Wesley Boyd wrote in this space a few days ago of the Scots-Irish lineage of more than a third of Americana's 43 presidents. What he didn't mention was the way in which this highly specific group has been shamelessly subsumed into the Gaelic myth. As far as the green lobby is concerned, the thousands of Presbyterians who moved from Ulster to Appalachia in the 18th century, following a brief sojourn in Down and Antrim, were broths of boys, not scotch broth.
My point is that time has moved on, leaving Irish-America occupying empty space, forever asking how things are in Glocca Morra (a place invented, appropriately, by the Jewish songwriter Isidore Hochberg). Even if they have Italian and Polish blood in their veins, they carry on imagining themselves to be more Irish than the Irish themselves.
John McCain, whose Irish forebears will certainly have included a sprinkling of anti-Catholic bigots, cares about his family and its traditions, but he doesn't give a stuff about Ireland and the Irish. This is not to say that he is anti-Irish; he simply doesn't take his perceived ethnicity into account when he is formulating policy.
The same goes for "O'Bama", who apparently has a thimbleful of Irish blood in his veins alongside the gallon or so from Kenya. He has no strong opinions one way or the other about Ireland - and why on earth should he?
What is the "correct" Kerryman's take on the Ukrainian question? What should we properly expect a woman from Louth to think about the recent elections in Ecuador? It makes no sense.
According to "Irish Americans for Obama", the Democratic candidate for the White House will be first "Irish-African-American" president. They even place an apostrophe-shaped shamrock between the O and the B in his name.
Pull-ease! As John McEnroe might say, you cannot be serious! After 200 years, it's time for Irish-America to grow up.