PETER KELLY of the Irish Post was a guest at the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago. Here he reports on the historic event

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the party convention (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

As a guest of the Democratic Party Convention, you will experience the fireworks of show business and politics up close and personally.

Political parties around the world traditionally hold their annual conferences – next month it’s the turn of the British parties. In America, however, it takes place every four years, just a few months before each presidential election. And they’re not just conferences. They’re “conventions”. Abbreviated, of course, to DNC and RNC.

Congressman Brendan Boyle, whose father was from Donegal

Witness the tightest security ever, made even tighter by recent threats against presidential candidate Trump and the upcoming Gaza protests by local Democrats. Helicopters are in action, the city’s entire police force is deployed, additional troops from across the US. And of course, countless members of the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security to reinforce the situation. Complete with their mini-tanks at the intersections near the Wembley-sized United (Airlines) Centre stadium. The military-industrial complex meets the executive and legislative branches.

Yet despite this political spectacle on a global scale, with an auditorium packed with an estimated 50,000 attendees and 15,000 media representatives from around the world, what can be produced locally for the Irish diaspora? After all, all politics is local. And in the case of our diaspora, the community money pump reaches all the way to the Oval Office.

Then came the mass arrival of Irish Americans on the scene. From Ireland’s US Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason to current and former Democratic members of Congress, governors, senators and White House staff of Irish descent, each of them vying for the attention of a potential and hopeful new US President and fellow Democrat Kamala Harris and her likely governing team.

Peter Kelly with Senator Bernie Sanders

The successful Irish lobbying that worked so spectacularly for President Biden must be extended to his successor with the same force. And here in the Windy City there is a chance to achieve this.

In substance, the DNC is not just a showbiz contingent to hear the best speeches from the Democratic hierarchy, but also to network those who occupy that hierarchy. A similar fine-tuning of relationships and then possible policy and new pro-Irish immigration laws are on everyone’s radar throughout the Irish Caucus. Relationships are everything in politics and this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work not just in the hall but in the stadium is an irresistible no-brainer.

Since Kennedy’s Camelot era, the hopes of Irish-Americans have rested on the Democratic Party. The Arkansas teenager who greeted JFK with outstretched hands in the famous photograph would go on to become his successor, an equally prominent Irish-American advocate and key guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement. From the Clinton White House to the current Biden administration, “Scranton Joe” refers to himself as “We Irish” to passionately flaunt his Irish credentials. This was heard again and again in speeches during Biden’s presidential visit to Ireland last year, which this correspondent followed across the country.

Bill Clinton at the party convention

Mary McAleese spoke of “the Gael spirit awakening” on her state visits abroad. Here in the most Irish of American cities, Chicago, the determined Gaels of the Irish diaspora have risen up again to bolster Ireland’s unlikely but enviable access and influence over the next US administration under the much-anticipated President Kamala Harris.

Now it’s up to the American voters and the Electoral College to provide the ultimate chance to make it all worthwhile, in just 70 days.

Peter Kelly