IRELAND’S AMBASSADOR in Washington, Michael Collins, will represent the Government at the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Gerry Adams’s planned attendance at the ceremony has been described as “distasteful” by the Ulster Unionist Party.
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said the protocol was that the Ambassador attended such a function on behalf of the Government.
Mr Collins became Ireland’s 16th ambassador to the US in 2007.
A Government spokesman said he did not know of any Government members who were attending the inauguration in an unofficial capacity but that was a private matter for each individual.
He pointed out that the inauguration coincided with the 90th anniversary of the first sitting of the Dáil.
A full house is expected when a joint sitting of both Houses of the Oireachtas takes place on Tuesday morning.
Sinn Féin’s Mr Adams is thought to be the only political figure from Northern Ireland to attend the inauguration.
An Ulster Unionist Party spokeswoman said his attendance was hardly surprising given the links between some elements of the Democratic Party and Sinn Féin.
“However, amongst the thousands of guests attending president-elect Obama’s inauguration, Gerry Adams will be a rather insignificant figure – and one from whom most other guests will keep their distance in view of Sinn Féin’s terrorist past in Northern Ireland and its ongoing support for international terrorist organisations such as Farc in Colombia, and Hamas and Hizbullah in the Middle East,” the spokeswoman said.
Canon Stephen Neill, the clergyman who discovered Mr Obama’s Irish roots, has also been invited to some Washington celebrations. Canon Neill and Henry Healy, a distant cousin of Mr Obama on his mother’s side, will attend an Irish-American Fund lunch and the Irish-American Democrats’ inaugural ball.
Last year Canon Neill discovered that Mr Obama’s great-great-great grandfather, Fulmouth Kearney, came from the village of Moneygall in Co Offaly and emigrated to the US in the 1850s.
The Corrigan brothers, whose popular single There’s No One As Irish As Barack Obama has become an online success, will also attend both events.
And U2 will join artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé when they perform on Sunday at a free open-air concert at Washington’s Lincoln Memorial in advance of the inauguration.
