Head of Ireland’s Senate sets sights on Alaska to strengthen bonds across oceans
- Jasz Garrett
- 12 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Rep. Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, introduces bill for proposed Alaska-Ireland Trade Commission
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
Sen. Mark Daly, chair of the Senate of Ireland (Cathaoirleach Seanad Éireann) met with the Alaska Legislature this week in Juneau to bolster international relationships and their economies.
Daly’s connection to Rep. Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, started while she was a state senator. He called on St. Patrick’s Day several years ago after her Irish last name caught his eye. Since that conversation, Daly has sent care packages and decorations to her office. Costello is the co-chair of the Alaska delegation of the American Irish Legislative Caucus. She went to the country with her family when she was 11 to connect to her Irish roots.
“I think my dad would have been elated to know that I’m heading up a caucus like this and meeting with the Irish (Senate) president. It’s just been all around really positive,” she said.
Daly has served in Seanad Éireann since 2007 and was re-elected to a fifth term in February 2025. He started the bipartisan American-Irish State Legislative Caucus in all 50 states in 2021. Membership does not require Irish heritage or support of Ireland: the caucus is open to everyone.
The Congressional Friends of Ireland already existed in the United States Congress. It was founded in 1981 by Irish-American politicians Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Daniel Moynihan, and House Speaker Tip O’Neill to support peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
On Monday, Costello announced Daly’s visit to the Alaska House and Senate through an email, followed by a verbal announcement on the House floor on Tuesday, the opening day of the second half of the 34th legislative session. Her office arranged meetings between legislative members and Daly.
Costello then introduced a bill to create a trade commission between Alaska and Ireland on Friday.
“I think bilateral relations are really important, especially in a global economy. And I think Alaskans have a lot to offer,” she said in an interview. “When you start working in international trade, and you give small businesses the opportunity to expose their products to a different culture, or come up with products or services that are valued by different cultures, I think it just makes our whole community stronger.”
Twenty-five other states already have a similar trade commission, according to Daly, and the Alaska trade commission won’t cost the state anything.
“So the commission is the structure to create that engagement between Ireland and Alaska and make sure that there’s ongoing engagement in education, in business, but also in politics,” he said.
During an interview in Costello’s office on Thursday, Daly said he doesn’t have much time to see the state’s scenic sights, aside from the Alaska State Capitol. His visit this week consisted of meeting with legislators, attending a Sealaska Heritage Institute legislative reception, and the governor’s State of the State address. Daly, who was in Juneau from Wednesday to Friday, met with the governor after his speech.
Daly explained why he spearheaded the American-Irish State Legislators Caucus and what he hopes will come of his Alaska visit.
“It’s about relationships and people coming to Ireland and seeing how important the United States is to Ireland in terms of the peace process, because the involvement of the United States in the peace process 28 years ago was hugely important,” he said. “That remains important because we're continuing to implement a lot of the elements of that peace process, even though we’re into three decades of it.”
The U.S. played a meaningful role in the success of the Good Friday multilateral agreement in 1998, Daly said. Before then, members of the national American Irish Legislative Caucus condemned the use of violence and urged Irish Americans not to support the Irish Republican Army, after John Hume, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and a member of the British Parliament, gathered their support.
Daly noted Hume’s group also encouraged President Ronald Reagan to persuade British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, which was one of the steps towards the Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement is a pair of agreements that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethnic and national conflict in Northern Ireland which began in the late 1960s, resulting in more than 3,600 deaths.
Daly said the peace process is an ongoing challenge even today. He said the U.S. and successive presidential administrations, including Trump’s, have been “hugely supportive” of the peace process. Only three months ago, the British and Irish governments appointed an envoy to talk to the paramilitaries in Northern Ireland with the goal of removing them.
“To give the scale of the challenge, there’s an estimated — according to the commissioners on monitoring paramilitary activity — 15,000 paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. Only a few hundred are active, but they’re involved in drug dealing and racketeering and extortion,” Daly said.
He suggested working with the U.S. at a federal and state level, along with partners across Europe, can allow Ireland to create more opportunities in disadvantaged communities “to stop young kids being sucked into paramilitaries.” He said the process could include training and educational opportunities. As for broader educational goals between Alaska and Ireland, Daly said he’d like to cultivate international student exchange programs.
“I suppose it’s identifying partnership between Irish universities, whether at a departmental level, so maybe the marine department in Galway University in Ireland, with the university’s marine department here as well,” he said. “So having that direct link between not entire universities, but just departments within universities would have an academic exchange.”
Daly noted “Ireland is the gateway to Europe” for U.S. companies and businesses. As of 2025, the country is the sixth-largest foreign direct investor, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. He suggested Ireland can help Alaska because of the countries’ similar legal structures, company laws, and shared English language.
Daly acknowledged there have been conflicts with the Trump administration in the past year, but he feels disputes involving tariffs have been resolved and international diplomacy can be a contentious process.
“There are always challenges and relationships between countries, and that obviously ebbs and flows. But I think we go back a long way,” he said. “Seven people who signed the Declaration of Independence were of Irish heritage. Three of them were born in Ireland. One of them, the first person to print a copy of the Declaration of Independence, was from Ireland. So those kind of historic relationships are a foundation on which you can build future relations.”
President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on Greenland the same week of Daly’s visit, raising questions by the Irish government about the U.S.-EU trade deal concluded last summer. Trump had threatened a 10% tariff starting Feb. 1 on eight European allies, including the UK, unless they agreed to his purchase of Greenland. On Wednesday, Trump backed down, claiming the “framework of a future deal” involving U.S. access in Greenland had been reached. While Ireland was not among the eight countries threatened, tariffs on some member states could have had significant implications, according to The Irish Times.
Along with historical links, Daly would also like Ireland to build on the foundation Alaska has laid for itself in the seafood industry. He met with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute during his visit.
“Alaska, obviously, is the largest producer of seafood in the United States of America. And we were talking last night (Wednesday) at the Sealaska event in relation to sea fishing,” he said. “Some of the issues came up about European Union, and in terms of access to that market for Alaska, so we were talking about how we would address that. They’re the kind of things that happen when you're on the ground, and you understand and meet with people who are engaged in the industry, and that's part of the idea of having a structure, an ongoing structure, for Alaska and Ireland.”
He said the island of Ireland also has a huge sea footprint.
“If it included our territorial waters, we’d be one of the largest countries in Europe. Most of it's covered by the sea,” he said. “But there's a lot we can learn from each other on that particular one, which, of course, Alaska is most famous for.”
Daly said the state can learn from Ireland, too. He said the country’s agriculture department remains one of the largest parts of the economy — it is one of Ireland’s longest and most successful industries.
“Ireland used to be an economy built on agriculture, and our largest export was our people at one stage, and through a lot of hard work and by the government over many decades, it has now ranked in the the human development index as one of the top 10 countries in the world in terms of health, education and income,” he said. “So I think there's a lot of policies that we have done that has helped transform the Irish economy from one of basically agriculture to one of industry and commerce. But I think there's a lot that we can learn from Alaska too, in terms of its progression over the last number of decades.”
He compared Ireland’s top-ranked Kerrygold butter to what Alaska does with its seafood production, as well as other agricultural products, such as cheddar cheese production by Irish companies in the U.S.
Daly said he met Rosita Worl, the president of Sealaska Heritage Institute, at a legislative reception, and they looked forward to celebrating culture and identity together.
“The Irish language, Irish culture, Irish music and dance, is a very important part of Irish identity. I know that's a very important part in terms of Alaska and its various cultures and identity,” he said.
Daly said during a politics course he took at Harvard Kennedy School, he learned “if it’s not being measured, it’s not being done.” He said he will measure the success of his Alaska trip based on the relationships built and Alaskan politicians visiting his country in the future.
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
