Newly declassified documents have revealed White House concern over a possible photo of Bill Clinton shaking hands with Gerry Adams during his landmark 1995 visit to Belfast.
The papers, published annually by the National Archives in Dublin, detail extensive diplomatic efforts between Irish and American officials to meticulously plan Clinton’s trip to the island of Ireland.
Discussions included considerations of whether the presidential couple should stay overnight in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, research by a genealogy expert, commissioned as part of the preparations, dismissed suggestions of Clinton’s Co Fermanagh ancestry as “fantasy”, although acknowledging possible roots elsewhere in Ulster.
The Clintons’ itinerary saw them in Northern Ireland before traveling to Dublin, with a reception scheduled for November 30 at Whitla Hall, Queen’s University Belfast.
Bill Clinton shakes hands with the public on Shankhill Road during his visit in 1995 (Adam Butler/PA)
A letter from the Irish Joint Secretary of the Anglo-Irish Secretariat, David Donoghue, to Sean O huiginn of the Anglo-Irish Division, said that “the Americans” initially wanted to host the reception and “limit” it to 120 people.
He said the British side “insisted” that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew, host him, which was agreed, and the guest list was expanded to 300 people.
“The apparent intention is to enable the President to meet a wider range of people in Northern Ireland,” he wrote on November 28, 1995.
“The real aim, of course, is to emphasize the political nature of the occasion and to create a wider ‘community’ event which, the British reckon, will facilitate Unionist participation alongside Sinn Fein.”
Mr Donoghue said representatives would form “bridges” at the reception – “a UUP bridge, an Alliance bridge etc” – determined on “a proportional basis in the light of their respective electoral strengths”.
“In other words, each will form a distinct group of people to whom the president will be introduced in turn (along the reception lines at Buckingham Palace).”
He also said that Peter Bell, of the Northern Ireland Office, had indicated that “the Americans would prefer to avoid a photograph of a handshake between the President and Adams”.
Bill Clinton gave a speech in Dublin during the trip (John Giles/PA)
He also said that although one-on-one meetings were planned with John Hume in Derry and David Trimble on a drive after the Queens reception, there was a “general reluctance of the United States” to meet one-on-one with Adams, Ian Paisley or John Alderdice.
“The general presumption, however, is that the president will take relevant people aside for separate private conversations on the sidelines of the reception.”
The two men shook hands for the first time in March of that year at the White House during St. Patrick’s Day events — but after the photographers had left the camera.
According to the New York Times, Mr. Clinton was under pressure at the time from British Prime Minister John Major not to hug Mr. Adams warmly at lunch.
On the morning of November 30, before the reception in Belfast that evening, Mr Clinton met Mr Adams on the Falls Road in Belfast.
As he left his car, he paused to shake Mr Adams’ hand – a moment captured by an official White House photographer.
Mr Clinton later said of the handshake that it was “a big deal” and felt at the time as if “the pavement was about to open”.
Plans for Clinton’s visit to Dublin on 1–2 December 1995 show that a US embassy official estimated there was a “50/50” chance that the visit would take place.
An Irish genealogy expert also said claims that Clinton had Cassidy ancestors who were from Co Fermanagh were “largely based on fantasy” – but the White House still wanted the Cassidy aspects added to the visit.
It was claimed that Mr. Clinton had Irish ancestry through his mother, Virginia Cassidy.
Genealogist Sean Murphy, from Bray, Co Wicklow, took it upon himself to trace Bill Clinton’s Irish ancestry after “the dissemination in the media of claims of the president’s Irish ancestry, which were found to be unfounded but not contradicted by any authoritative source”.
He told the taoiseach’s office that the earliest trace of the president’s maternal ancestors in that line is “probably” Zachariah Cassidy, born about 1750-60 in South Carolina, and his son Levi.
“Clan Cassidy’s claim that the earliest ancestor was Luke or Lucas Cassidy of Roslea, Co Fermanagh appears to be based largely on fantasy,” he wrote on October 16.
“The biblical surnames Zachariah and Levi suggest a Protestant, and probably Presbyterian or Dissenter, as opposed to Catholic origin, and it is reasonable to speculate that the Cassidy family would most likely have emigrated to America from an Ulster county.”
In notes from a meeting with the US embassy three days later, Irish officials said a planned stop in Lismore, Co Fermanagh, had been scrapped but the White House was “still interested in using the Cassidy connection in a discreet way”.
They said this could mean “‘occasionally’ passing by a Cassidy HQ”.
Mr Clinton would visit Cassidy’s Bar in Dublin for an hour during the 1995 trip.
This article is based on documents contained in the file labeled 2025/115/827 in the National Archives of Ireland.