John Dearie, who has set his extraordinary stamp on Irish history by virtue of his political actions in America, is the Irish Echo's Irish American of the Year for 2024.
The Bronx-born Dearie, who served in the New York State Assembly from 1973 to 1992, succeeds labor legend John "Chick" Donohue.
Dearie's service to his New York constituents over his years in office was significant. But it has been his unique contribution to the cause of peace in Ireland that makes Dearie a towering figure, that being above and beyond the considerable literal stature of the onetime Notre Dame basketball star.
Simply put, if the Good Friday Agreement came with a trophy, Dearie, "the father" of the Irish American Presidential Forum, would have his fingerprints all over it.
The forum, which first took form in 1984, reached its zenith in 1992 when two presidential candidates, Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown, spoke at a forum in Manhattan that would later result in a U.S. visa for Gerry Adams, a U.S. Special Envoy to the North, and federal support for the MacBride Principles on fair employment.
It was the 1992 Forum, not the first and not the last in the series, that would set the stage for a chain of events that would ultimately lead to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
The first forum will mark its fortieth anniversary in 2024.
Convinced that nothing less than the office of the United States President would be sufficient to bring peace to Ireland, Dearie, in that presidential election year, would conceive the idea of an event where candidates could be questioned and deliver answers with regard to possible U.S. intervention in the conflict then in its third decade.
That opening chapter in what would become a hitherto unimaginable role for the United States played out in, of all places, a beach club in the Bronx.
But as unlikely as the venue, the main participant was a former vice president, Walter Mondale.
Mondale did not win the White House that year but by virtue of his interest and participation in the forum he had delivered enormous credibility to Dearie's quest for an entirely new American approach to Ireland.
John Dearie joins a distinguished and varied Irish American of the Year roster that features labor champion John "Chick" Donohue, Professor Christine Kinealy, hotelier and philanthropist John Fitzpatrick, former member of the Irish Senate and immigration activist Billy Lawless, Irish Immigration Reform Movement co-founder Mae O’Driscoll, Congressman Joe Crowley, university lecturer and Great Hunger curriculum pioneer Maureen Murphy, Congressman Peter King, broadcaster Adrian Flannelly, philanthropist Loretta Brennan Glucksman, attorney and rights activist Brian O’Dwyer, journalist and author Pete Hamill, Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal, author Colum McCann, former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
