The Derry woman who had lunch with American President Joe Biden

In 1986, Geraldine O’Doherty was in in her early 30s, studying Irish history and politics in Ulster University Magee. Geraldine’s husband Raymond was also a mature student and they had a three-years-old child, Brian, and a seven year old, Leon, living in a ‘wee house’ in the Glen. Geraldine was offered the opportunity of a lifetime to do a summer internship in Washington, which led the Derry woman to lunch with a future President of America.

Geraldine said: “I went over there at a particularly volatile time, not only in Ireland and the UK, but in Washington, too. At that time, Margaret Thatcher gave permission for the US military to launch bombing raids to Libya from UK air bases. Before I went over, being the typical Derry Girl that I was, I did a bit of studying to know what I was getting myself into. I was always interested in reading the broadsheets, particularly the Observer. There was an article about the deliberation of the US-UK Supplementary Extradition Treaty, and they were deliberating on that at the Foreign Relations Committee. This amended Treaty would have profound effects on those Irish people who were seeking political asylum in the USA. There were fierce debates and lobbying about this at the Foreign Relations Senate Committee at the time, so I decided to investigate it. President Joe Biden was on the committee at the time. Senator Eagleton was the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and I was assigned to work for him in one of his offices.

“When I arrived in Washington, there was nobody to meet me at the other end. I was like a wee duck out of water. I had never been in America in my life, I spent hours on the plane and all I had was an address. I thought to myself that I was either going to sink or swim, it was an anxious time for me as you can imagine when I arrived at the airport in Washington, I stuck my hand up and yelled ‘taxi!’

"I worked in the Dirksen Senate building, where all the committees were based and all the offices; the general administrative offices of all the different senators were based there. It was on Capitol Hill, across the street from the Senate itself. I worked in the sorting room with all the others who were on internships. But being the inquisitive political person that I am, I decided to ask if I could study the US-UK Supplementary Extradition Treaty. This would make the experience worthwhile as I had decided at this stage on a working title for my final year thesis.

”I worked in the Foreign Relations Department with two women, one of them wrote all the speeches for Senator Eagleton and they were really hard-nosed New Yorkers, which I liked because I was able to work well with them being the Derry girl that I was.

“I went in and started doing my Sherlock Holmes by setting out my study framework bearing in mind I had the gift of the gab. I used to phone up all these places which I felt were relevant and they would send these big limousines to collect me. I first went to the Irish Embassy and then I went to the British Embassy, the First Secretaries, and interviewed them about what they thought of all this. This was followed by visits to the State Department, the Irish National Caucus, the Library of Congress and interviews with all members of the Foreign Relations Committee.

“Joe Biden was on the Irish Foreign Relations Committee and he would meet me when we were attending the Committee meetings. I tended to keep my distance because I respected their political positions. I was invited out to lunch with Senator Eagleton and Joe Biden to a fancy restaurant in Massachusetts Avenue and we had the best of craic together. On a personal level, Joe was then how he is now; a lovely Southern gentleman, polite, very articulate and very, very sharp, with a great sense of humour.

"Unfortunately, Senator Tom Eagleton has since passed away, he was very friendly with John Hume.

"I was asked to give a talk to Senators with a particular Irish interest, for example, Edward Kennedy and Tip O’Neil. I asked what they would like me to talk about and they said to just talk about being a student coming to the Senate and the reasons I came over. So, I decided to talk about being a student, living in the middle of the troubles and how to approach Irish history and politics objectively. Being objective is a very difficult thing, because of the way you're brought up and because of your culture values and everything like that. Fortunately, I learned a lot from my father, the late Michael Roddy Snr, who had an international outlook.

"When I look back on it now, the precarious times we were in and the nature of the research I was doing, was such a big deal but I thought nothing of it when I was there."Geraldine went on to work in Magee library for 18 years after her summer in America as well as working in education and community research but she remembers her time in the Senate fondly, when a Derry girl had lunch with the future President of the USA.