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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Shock as US ends funding for Mitchell Scholarship program -- Attacks on Irish American community by Mitchell director Trina Vargo backfire

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Shock as US ends funding for Mitchell Scholarship program -- Attacks on Irish American community by Mitchell director Trina Vargo backfire

Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 08:05 AM

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Trina Vargo

The decision by the US State Department to end funding for the Mitchell Scholarships comes as a great surprise. The scholarship, named after former Senator George Mitchell sends 12 US students a year to Ireland and was modeled on the Rhodes scholars, but has become embroiled in continuing controversy.

The controversial statements of the Alliance president Trina Vargo hardly helped. She left Irish community leaders incensed on issues such as the Irish undocumented, comparing them to putting lipstick on pigs if they were legalised.

Her continued attacks on funding for the International Fund for Ireland, while she tried to grab their funding for herself, also deeply upset many.

She also ran into turbulence in Ireland where Senator Mark Daly had courageously called her to account for her outrageous statements aimed at the Irish American community and had arranged hearings before their foreign affairs committee that she inexplicably and arrogantly refused to attend.

Then there was her sneering attack on Irish leader Enda Kenny for presenting a certificate of Irish heritage to President Obama during the St.Patrick’s Day period, and attack which was completely without class or context given the occasion.

Now that the State Department have taken a very significant step there will be precious few defenders of the Alliance in the community that she seemed so determined to offend and denigrate and where she is now seeking help and writing frantic letters.
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The list of names supporting Vargo in the Irish community at present would be short indeed. There is not a significant organization in any state that supports her. Indeed, she has insulted the Irish government, including Kenny, at every opportunity it seems.

That is a shame in many ways because the idea behind the scholarships is a good one and the good name of George Mitchell deserves rescuing, even if he never seemed to question what Ms Vargo was actually up to and let her run riot.

The State Department however, clearly saw the lack of support for the direction of the Mitchell Scholarships and acted accordingly.

It is obvious that The Mitchell Scholars program needs new leadership and direction and that the Irish American community should certainly get behind the scholarship program with new leadership.

The downfall of the Mitchell Scholar program is an example of hubris where its president clearly felt there was no downside to slamming and denigrating every other Irish American organization in the US.

She is learning a tough lesson that that is just not the case.

So save the scholars, revamp the program, and hire someone that can add to the legend of George Mitchell, not subtract from it as Ms Vargo has been doing.

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Bythebay | Jun 25, 2012, 02:06 PM EDT

Excellent decision, George Mitchell had no connection to Ireland and neither does the scholarship named after him. The Fulbright Scholarship is one supported by Ireland and has far more relevance to Ireland, is reciprocal with the US and is recognized world-wide. Well done US State Department.

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WoundedKnee | Jun 24, 2012, 11:21 AM EDT

jacers: You're a liar. You're no more a native speaker of Irish than I am of Swahili. And you know even less of linguistics than you do of Irish. What's "a soft 'h' between the letters"? How do I know it's soft? What does a hard one feel like? And what's wrong with your misspelling "tAontas Eorpoch"? By the way, I am as Irish as you--more so, since unlike you I speak the ancient language of the Gael and have studied the country's history and literature. So cuir sin i do phíopa agus ding suas do thóin é.

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jacersagain | Jun 23, 2012, 06:57 PM EDT

"poltroon"?? George, you obviously don't even know the meaning of that word. Saying I don't know the difference betwen Irish and English has nothing to do with being a poltroon. Go look it up in a dictionary. Oh, wait! You're too lazy to do that, so I'll tell you: a poltroon is a coward. As a native Irish speaker, I know how to pronounce the name of my country in Irish. It's certainly not 'Ayra'. An 'É' fada followed by an 'i' has, in the spoken language, a soft 'h' between the letters.

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WoundedKnee | Jun 23, 2012, 09:06 AM EDT

jacers: "I am blessed with good sight and memory". But not good sense. You don't even know the difference between Irish and English. What a poltroon.

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WoundedKnee | Jun 23, 2012, 09:02 AM EDT

...Well-funded cheerleaders for mass immigration are very loud. Unfortunately, there are few organisations calling for reasonable limits who can draw on similar levels of funds. It is interesting that the founder of Atlantic Philanthropies which has provided finance to several of the mass migrationist mouthpiece bodies in Ireland is Chuck Feeney (a US globalist capitalist). It seems somewhat ironic that Feeney, who is so proud of his link to Ireland, has been party to the funding of organisations that support migrants to Ireland so vociferously, despite the obvious social re-engineering of Irish society that mass migration brings." ---This is very well written, but I didn't write it. I read it today on an Irish web site.

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jacersagain | Jun 22, 2012, 05:33 PM EDT

(…more) I’ve travelled a lot over many years. I am blessed with good sight and memory and remember the headings on the cover of my old, pre-European Union, Irish passport: the first word, my country of origin, is printed with gold lettering in my native language - ÉIRE, followed by IRELAND (English) followed by IRLANDE (French). My current passport is headed ‘An tAontas Eorpoch’ (Irish), followed by (in English) ‘European Union’, both in small lettering, followed - gloriously - by, in capital gold printed letters, ‘ÉIRE’, followed by ‘IRELAND’. French has been delightedly dumped and German doesn’t get a look in on my Irish Passport. I’m always proud to show my Irish passport wherever needed with the first word reading Éire. In foreign lands, when people ask me where I’m from, thinking I’m English since I speak English mostly, I say “I’m from Éire (pron: Ay-hir-eh), or Ireland, or Irlanda (not the French version!) as you local people might know it better”. As for Niall’s rubbish above and other recent articles by him, let’s forgive him… he’s been on the whiskey again.

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jacersagain | Jun 22, 2012, 05:28 PM EDT

Wounded Knee today at 03.37AM EDT (Hiya George Dillon! - sean Cara and Fellow Defender of Catholicism, Fellow Defender of Ireland against unwelcome foreigners and Fellow Defender of all things Irish. ~waving~ How’s it goin’? How’s life treatin' ya these days? D’oul’ schizophrenia stuff hitting ya again? Not to worry, oul’ pal, you’ll be as right as Irish rain when you find your other selves again, and I’ll say a Catholic prayer fer ya on that) basically says that Irish people would find the term ‘Éire’ quite offensive, associated with British jingoism. Clearly, schiz sick WK is not an Irish citizen and does not hold an Irish passport or else s/he is blind. I am an Irish citizen, born, bred and raised in Dublin City, Éire. (More…)

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nashvilleirish | Jun 22, 2012, 01:20 PM EDT

To WoundedKnee: Very well then, an apology: I am sorry you are a fault-finding troll whose colossal ego has convinced him that he is the guardian of Ireland's honor. What an absurd little person you are.

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WoundedKnee | Jun 22, 2012, 12:27 PM EDT

nashvilleirish: Your "analogy" is complete nonsense, it shows you understand nothing of Ireland. You would do better to offer an apology, not an analogy

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nashvilleirish | Jun 22, 2012, 09:34 AM EDT

Wow, WoundedKnee you are obsessed, aren't you? A single error and you build a universe from it? Perhaps you as an Irishman regard the Eire/Ireland as a crime against the nation, but it was just a slip. Perhaps the analogy is someone who resents the use of the word American or America by a citizen of the US. Questions of nationality and nationhood obsess many but I am not (though I cherish the time spent inIreland). But do you really think I would invent a biography or be so concerned with the Mitchell Scholarship if I had no connection to Ireland? I mean, really?

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WoundedKnee | Jun 22, 2012, 03:37 AM EDT

nashvilleirish: I don't believe you've spent all that time in Ireland. If you had spent just a week or two, and talked to a few people, you'd know than most Irish people find the term "Eire" as used to describe their country in the English language to be quite offensive and associated with a certain type of British jingoism. No Irish person ever said "I'm a citizen of Eire". Shame on you.

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butlerreport | Jun 21, 2012, 08:12 PM EDT

Trina Vargo is right and the truth hurts. Irish undocumented are the bottom of the barrel and not needed, nor welcome, in the US. They have known the consequences of coming to the US undocumented since 1988. Indeed educated Irish are not that much in demand as our level of education in technology and hi-tech is laughable when compared to US domestic levels. We have to take the criticism for what we know is true and not stomp our feet like found out children.

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RedBranch | Jun 21, 2012, 05:14 PM EDT

I seem to recall Gerry Adams refusing to show up for arranged hearings before a foreign affairs committee. 'No case to answer', he said. Perhaps Trina Vargo is cut from the same cloth, although of course looking after the interests of her own country.

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nashvilleirish | Jun 21, 2012, 04:27 PM EDT

The key word is SCHOLARSHIP. If you think "thousands" of American students are flocking to the universities of Ireland in the Great Recession... well, then you have not been near one lately. The quality of the competition for the Mitchell Scholarship means that some of the best and brightest students are coming to Ireland and establishing life-long relationships -- and taking back toe US a positive view of Ireland. How can that NOT help Ireland? Your statement is nonsense. The money is a trifle and will soon be raised from private sources. And you continue to spread misinformation. Most Mitchell Scholars who matriculate do so at universities in IRELAND. Go to the US-Ireland Alliance site and search the database. I have traveled extensively in Ireland and have taught study abroad courses for US college students in Dublin and Galway. Your *non sequitur* about illegal wars is a classic. Bereft of any arguments and animated by a foolish hatred of persons you don't know (Trina Vargo and me), you blame a private citizen (one of 310 million) for the wars of the world. I could come back and say why do you still harbor IRA gunmen and why did you do nothing to stop the deaths of 4000 persons during the Troubles? See how stupid it can get?

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Bythebay | Jun 21, 2012, 04:15 PM EDT

nashvilleirish, your argument is moot. The program is finished. The vast majority of the WOW 12 students per year which cost an exhorbitant amount of money studied in Northern Ireland UK and had their final dinner in Belfast, Northern Ireland UK where most of them were. You've never been to Ireland and know nothing about Ireland. Step off your bar stool if you even can. The Mitchell Students did NOTHING for Ireland. The US is very smart ending this. If you want to make the world better stop starting illegal wars.

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