The US diplomat’s first official encounter with official Ireland reveals much about his interest in the new post and the attitudes of the host administration towards him and his country. But how did the diplomat then create their social circle as a tool of soft power? They needed to avoid cause offense to any group while still promoting their country’s interests. Interacting with de Valera’s ideal of a Gaelic, Roman Catholic, republican Ireland presented the diplomat with many potential social as well as political dangers. The chapter argues that de Valera cultivated a close relationship with John Cudahy in particular believing that the American sympathised with the Irish case for unity and in the existence of a special relationship. But de Valera failed to realise that US envoys were obliged to get as close as possible to leaders just as he wanted Irish diplomats to do in the United States

A similarity in the diplomatic practice of American and Irish foreign services at this time was the use of the respective nation’s culture, its political values and its foreign policies to promote national interests. The chapter recreates the social circles of the Irish diplomat in Roosevelt’s America. It is argued that the Irish representatives and their spouses assisted in establishing Irish national identity separate from that of Britain and the commonwealth, more Americans became interested in Irish literature, language and music and came to see Ireland as a place to visit. But de Valera’s on-going aim to secure official America’s assistance with resolving the Anglo-Irish economic war and the partition problem, improving the economy and combatting anglophile views in the Roosevelt administration were difficult for the diplomats to realise. By the 1930s Ireland’s problems were of less interest to US politicians and public alike.