Hello, you're welcome

We were fortunate enough to have spent the morning at the Iveagh House in Dublin speaking with one of the key diplomats for foreign affairs, Cyril Brennan. His full title is Deputy Director US Affairs, North America, Australia and New Zealand Unit, Anglo-Irish Division  We also received our first Irish welcome,when Cyril entered the room he said "You're welcome" this is a nice change from what you might get in the states.

The Iveagh House building itself was amazing, the exterior facade looks like any other place in Dublin but once you enter in past the modest security (compared to the US) the real beauty of the building can be seen. Gifted to the state by the Guinness family years ago, access to the house is limited to basically invitation only. Since they considered us business students as future leaders and decision makers from the US, our credentials were enough to get us some time with the diplomat and a  tour!

It was interesting to see all the connections back to the speakers we had on Monday. We discussed food trace-ability as a public sector initiative today while yesterday we heard from the Co-CEO of IdentiGEN, a company specializing in protein tracking. We also heard about some past initiatives from Andrew Parish on marine energy which was also a key topic for the affairs office.

Iveagh House

After the Iveagh house we got a tour of the main Irish government building called the Dáil. There were quite a few similarities between the way the Dáil and the way the US capital building is set up. It was surprising to see how proud of their American Presidential visits and how strong the US influence is on what should be the most patriotic and Irish place on the island! One of the biggest pieces of art is actually a US civil war flag celebrating the Irish who fought from New York, this was apparently presented to them by John F. Kennedy just a few months before he was assassinated.