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Emigration and Samantha Power, ex-Obama adviser

By Noreen Bowden | May 27, 2008

An Irish Independent columnist has written a reflection piece on Dublin-born Samantha Power, the former foreign policy adviser to US presidential candidate Barack Obama. Writer John Crown focuses in on the emigration at an early age of Ms Power, who left Ireland at an early age with her mother and brother after the breakup of her parents’ marriage. He notes that although she has spoken of the difficulties of settling in, she has become a ‘simply staggeringly accomplished woman’.

What would have happened to Samantha if she had stayed in Ireland? What would she have been doing? Would she have been influencing international policy and winning Pulitzer prizes, or would she have been forced through party loyalty to stand in the tent at the Galway Races (thankfully now defunct — well done, Mr Cowen) and share pleasantries with the building industry?

Would she have been advising taoisigh on foreign aid, or responses to genocide or dealings with peak oil in a warming world, or would she instead be picking which incompetent to put in a given ministry in order to achieve regional electoral balance.

I think that Ireland could never have allowed her to thrive and grow the way that America did… [T]hank God she emigrated.

Read the article on IrishIndependent.com.

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