Overview
- Documents released from the National Archives of Ireland, including file 2025/115/827, detail U.S., British and Irish coordination of President Bill Clinton’s 1995 Northern Ireland visit.
- Two days before the Belfast reception, UK official Peter Bell relayed that the Americans wanted to avoid a photographed handshake between Clinton and Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.
- Despite that preference, Clinton and Adams shook hands on the Falls Road on 30 November 1995, and the moment was recorded by an official White House photographer.
- Correspondence shows U.S. officials pushed for a tightly controlled Whitla Hall reception of about 120 guests, while the British side secured Patrick Mayhew as host and expanded attendance to roughly 300 with set party “pods.”
- A state-commissioned genealogist, Sean Murphy, concluded popular claims linking Clinton’s maternal Cassidy line to Co Fermanagh were largely fantasy, though an Ulster origin remained plausible.