Larry Donnelly calling the US shots
REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF TALKED TO BOSTONIAN PUNDIT LARRY DONNELLY ABOUT BEING AN AMERICAN IN IRELAND AND HELPING TO RUN THE KENNEDY SUMMER SCHOOL. AND THERE WAS NO AVOIDING THE TOPIC OF DONALD J TRUMP
LARRY Donnelly admits staying up late last Wednesday night into Thursday morning, watching events in Washington DC unfold on television. Then he was up early after very little sleep, fielding calls from RTÉ News and from a bunch of local radio stations all keen to learn his views. So what was the verdict of Ireland’s favourite commentator on all things USA on the storming of the Capitol by Trump-supporting extremists?
‘It’s just shocking,’ he says, along the line from Wicklow Town, before admitting: ‘I never thought it would get this far.’ The mob that broke into his nation’s parliament he describes as very crazy people: ‘It is as though they are living in non-reality.’ The riot represents the departing President’s legacy, with Larry predicting that the images from the disturbance will be how his term in office will be most remembered.
How come an academic from Massachusetts is the person the media turn to so readily whenever the affairs of the United States demand explanation to an Irish audience? The 46-year-old tells how he was born and raised outside the very Irish city of Boston, a product of an Irish-American family steeped in politics.
His late mother hailed from Glasgow but she had Cavan roots while, on his dad’s side, the contacts through his paternal grandfather were with North Galway. The family came back regularly to Scotland and Ireland on vacation when Larry was a boy.
In his neighbourhood, he was unusual in not having a parent born on the Emerald Isle: ‘Ireland was very much in the foreground when I was young.’ The Donnelly/Kelly clan from which he sprang was well known in the city, their fame flowing from great-uncle Frank Kelly who served as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. He also held the post of state attorney-general and he was the youngest city councillor ever elected.
Frank’s brother John Kelly was a councillor too and he might have become the city’s top man when legendary incumbent James Michael Curley was clapped in jail. However, the honour passed John by as he was under indictment himself.
Best known of the family’s succeeding generation was Congressman Brian Donnelly, remembered for the Donnelly visa programme which allowed Irish citizens access to jobs in the US. Meanwhile, Brian’s brother (Larry’s father) was energetically active behind the scenes in Boston politics, a true blue Democrat with moderate centrist leanings. Larry raised eyebrows when he threatened to swing towards the rival party.
‘I am now a Democrat,’ he stresses. ‘But when I turned 18, my act of teenage rebellion was registering as a Republican to the horror and shock of my entire family. I came back into the fold a few years later.’
The Donnellys and Kellys were swimming in the same political pool as the Kennedys and Larry says he has met several of JFK’s tribe over the years. Strangely, most of these encounters have been back on the ould sod, through his involvement with the Kennedy Summer School which convenes annually in New Ross.
In his eyes, the Kennedys were always national figures while most of his relatives concentrated on local matters: ‘We felt that sometimes they took their eye off the ball on what happened in Boston, in Massachusetts.’
Larry studied law and after graduating became a practising attorney, though he quickly became frustrated with legal work, determining to find something else to fill his life. He toyed with the idea of migrating