Im scott stevenson, im the president and ceo of the museum of the American Revolution. And very much. applause how many of you are visiting the museum for the first time this evening . All right. I love that the proportion of hands is getting lower and lower as we move on and on. As you know we opened just a little over two years ago at first and Chestnut Street and hit philadelphia just two blocks from independence hall. The mission of the museum is to uncover and share compelling stories about the Diverse People and complex events that started americas ongoing experiment in liberty, quality equality and self government. For those of you who have been to the museum and been to our 16,000 square feet of core exhibition that shares all these incredible stories of the making of the United States of america and also starts to explore the ongoing legacies of that revolution. Both here in america and around the world, we have seen George Washingtons remarkable war tenth home away from home. Our first commander and chief lived there and experienced some of the lowest and highest moments of the American Revolution so it is a great place to visit. We are glad to bring you here tonight for this wonderful evening exploring connections between ireland and the American Revolution through a conversation with. This coincides with the opening of our First International loan exhibition called cost of revolution. The life and death of an irish soldier. It is brought together almost 100 works of art and objects from four countries and 40 lenders. Not only exploring the life of an individual man born in ireland in the 17 fifties whose lifespan the age of revolution and connects the 1776 revolution in this neighborhood here in philadelphia with irelands revolution of 1798. Then as we will begin to discuss this evening, those are revolutions that are of course ongoing and continue to ripple around the world. It is worth reminding ourselves also that we are just a block from robert mehls book shop. The press that first issued the words of thomas pain in january of 1776 and the pamphlet of common sense. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. So for our cspan audience this evening, you can learn a lot about the museum and the exhibition on our website which is am rev museum dot oh are gee. Mrevmuseum. Org i want to quickly recognize our league sponsors, the Irish Georgian society and the Irish Government through its immigrant support program that allowed us to bring these incredible objects together for the first time in an exhibition. And it will only appear here and run through st. Patricks day of next year 2020. Our host committee, you can see their names up on the title side here have been working with us for months. They are here this evening, governor randall, Mike Driscoll are our honourary chair. We have the honorable jamie lin. Joseph mars, kevin with the Irish American business chamber. Charles hopkins is out there as well. And last but certainly not least, Kathleen Sullivan who kept us all in line and on task and on target. Right . laughs please help me think all of them. applause my main role this evening is to do two things. The first one is to encourage you to silence your cellphones which i will do right now. And then to introduce our moderator for this evening my good friend craig snyder whos the president and ceo of the World Affairs council here in philadelphia. Craig is a local boy, and began his career at the council 30 years ago. He then left to pursue a career in politics along the way with the candidates for the United States congress. He was chief of staff for our pennsylvania senator. He was a lobbyist, political consultant and then in december 2012 he came back here to his hometown to take the helm of the World Affairs council. It has been very gratifying to have a growing partnership with the World Affairs council because of course, the museum of the American Revolution and the vision for this organization is to ensure that the promise of the American Revolution indoors. That makes sure that this is a place that is not only telling a story from long ago in the past but really sees the American Revolution as an ongoing experience. So our partnership with World Affairs council has been wonderful to sort of tie a lot of these themes that go back to the founding of the nation but then continue to resonate across the nation and around the world. So please join me in welcoming craig snyder. Things very much scott and let me agree that the partnership between the museum and the World Affairs council in philadelphia i think is a wonderful addition to civic philadelphia. I think is a wonderful addition to civics philadelphia. I have the pleasure this evening of introducing and then a bit later engaging in some conversation with our honored speakers for this evening. Im going to introduce them both to you at the same time. First, we will have a presentation by ambassador daniel mulhall, the ambassador of ireland to the United States. He served as a member of the secretariat for the peace and reconciliation and was support of the Irish Governments delegation at the time of the good friday agreement. The ambassador will be discussing the influence of the American Revolution and the irish revolution of 1798. On irelands path to independence and the relevance of those revolutions today. Second, we will have a presentation by doctor Martin Mansergh, historian and former irish political and diplomatic figure who helped negotiate the good friday agreement. Doctor Martin Mansergh is vice chair of the Expert Advisory Group of commemorations. He is also a descendant of richard st. George, the subject of the museums special exhibition about the revolution. Bringing the personal and the scholarly together. So, with that, the ambassador will make his remarks then doctor Martin Mansergh, then we will engage in conversation. Mister ambassador, please. applause first of all, thank you very much for all of you for being here. Its wonderful to see a crowd like this in philadelphia on a summer evening. It would be difficult in ireland to get a crowd like this on this kind of evening. We would feel like we would want to do something outdoors rather than be in a museum. I want to say i love the museum here. Museums are Getting Better and better in my experience. This one is really one of the best i have ever seen anywhere. We just opened a new museum in ireland last week called molly. It is the museum of literature ireland. Focuses on the life and work of literary tradition. It is wonderful to come here today how brilliantly the whole history of the revolution is projected downstairs, and then to come up here and visit the exhibition. The revolution focusing on the life of richard st. George and the era in which he lived. I want to congratulate everyone that is connected with the museum of the American Revolution for a fantastic achievement and bringing this museum together and bringing the history of that vital period of World History to life. Im really very impressed by it. I wish you all the very best with the development of this museum in the years ahead. Im glad to be here with martin. When i started my diplomatic career in 1978, i know i dont look that old but i am. I shared a room and dublin with my colleagues, and it is good to be back with them again in philadelphia. On this wonderful evening. And we think back on the history of america and the impact that americas had on ireland. Just so i am a historian, but im a im an amateur, and its enthusiastic amateur historian. I have written a few books on irish is three and i have a blog which you can get through my twitter account. I block on a regular basis on our history. Use your to do that then do politics. Politics gets you in trouble. History, you can get a get away with it. You can take an angle on it and get away with it. My most recent historical adventure was to attend the naming of the new park in washington d. C. Devoted to the memory of robert, who is a person from this very era who was executed after an unsuccessful rebellion in 18 or three, but whose memory he became an icon for Irish Americans as a sort of sacrificial victim in the cause of irish freedom. Im not a professional historian, but it allowed me to do a one on one, its my sort of specialty. I always go back to the 12th century, but i will get to the 18th century and about 30 seconds. The normans first in the 12th century, an 11 69. We just marked the 815th anniversary of the norman invasion of ireland. They invaded my part of ireland. Which was kollie waterford. They stab lush themselves in ireland and henry the second wanted to make sure they did not get to independent and theyre thinking came across and established himself as the king of ireland, but of course it took centuries for that can ship to become effective throughout the whole length and breadth of ireland. Fast forward to the 70 17th century which was a disaster for the irish, for the navy native irish aristocracy. They were comprehensively defeated. At the beginning of the century, at the bathroom of king sale when the spanish support for the irish chieftains failed to bring success and those chieftains left ireland in the early 17th century, and their descendants are scattered all over europe, before in the catholic armies of europe and the 17th 18th and 19th century. Many of them became distinguished figures in their adopted home runs. At the end of the century, the battle of ashram, the final defeat really of the catholic irish. An exodus of people from that generation left ireland never to return. The 18th century and ireland which is the one we are focusing on with st. George. You can look at it from two angles. On the one hand, you can say what was in that an amazing century for ireland . Think about it. Jonathan swift. Berkeley. Edmund burke. Richard princely. These players are still performed on stage. Greta. He lived on to the 19th century. Grattan. If you go to dublin today you will still see the evidence of the great flowering of the angle irish aristocracy in the 18th century because all the great public buildings, the great houses, country, castles from that period, are an expression of that period of a success of the angle irish. People of english or british dissent who became the ruling class in ireland. However, you can look at it from a different angle. If you look at it from the angle of the irish peasant or even the irish covenant in the 18th century. Irish catholics were faced with the disability imposed on them by the penal laws, which prevented catholics from from doing a lot of things, but over the period of time, the penal laws were relaxed, somewhat. But still, ireland was completely dominated by a relatively small percentage of the population of the ruling class. I have to confess. This was not unique in that everywhere in europe, people who did not belong to the ruling class had pretty miserable lives. If you are a Central European peasant, or even a person of war means, in the 17th century during the 30 years of war, it was no picnic i can tell you. It is not that ireland was uniquely oppressed, but there was a bit of a difference in ireland and the sense that there was a religious difference between the ruling class who were essentially protestants and the majority of the population who are catholic in religion. That religious difference really became a deciding, a dividing line and ireland that has really played for the last several centuries. All of that great tradition, giggling civilization went into decline in the 18th century. You had this catholic protestant divide. Ruling class protestant and the population being catholic. There were prosperous catholics. The best example would be Daniel Connors family. The liberator who brought about catholic emancipation in 1820. The reform of the British Parliaments. The Collins Family were very well to do. They were merchants. That required a certain amount of keeping your head down, not attractive any not attracting any negative attention from authorities. Playing a game successfully and that is what the Collins Family would do. They were not the only ones who achieved that kind of status. They would hang on to some of their wealth and their lands and their privileges as part of the catholic majority which otherwise suffered badly during the course of the 18th century. Most irish people, if you ask an irish person. Give me a significant event in the 18th century. I would say how do you assess not a single irish person will name an event in the first 80 years of that century. Not that nothing happened, that there is no memory of anything significant from that year. It is seen as a low point for irish identity, if you will. The first date they might mention if they were reasonably well informed would be 1782. 1782 was six years after the American Revolution. The american declaration of independence. What happened in ireland after the american declaration . Downstairs, you can see a copy of the american declaration published in an irish newspaper. About only a few months after the declaration was issued here in philadelphia. Very quickly, the declaration started to have an effect on thinking in ireland. Its effect was largely on those people who were better educated, more prosperous. Who could read and who would subscribe to those newspapers. It had a special effect in where they were lots of family collections between presbyterians and the settlements here in north america. That generated a form of colonial nationalism. And 1782, the Irish Parliament managed to assert itself and acquire additional power. It was not an independent power by any means, but its certainly it extracted additional powers and responsibilities from a reluctance British Parliament in london or british government. That set off what i would call a decade of colonial nationalism. That gradually developed into a form of republicanism. Especially after the french revolution broke out in 1789. Therefore, the ideas of the American Revolution combined with the ideas of the french revolution gave rise to the society of the united irishman. They are the ones who nine years after the revolution finally managed to engineer an uprising in ireland which was unsuccessful, but successful. It was both a failure and a success. It was a failure because it did not achieve the outcome that they wanted, which was independence for ireland. And what was idealistically refer to as bringing together catholics and protestants that failed. Miserably. But the republican idea, although the revolution was crushed, principally because of the difference between america and ireland. That difference was mainly distance. It was not that there werent enough irish people that could have rebuilt. In fact the population at that time was probably higher than the population, or at least it was comparable to the population of the colonies on the east coast of america. But ireland was very close to britain. Therefore, the rebellion was put down with considerable severity. But the impact of that rebellion was that its so deceived of a republican tradition. In other words, there was total defeat for the revolution