Symposium

Decatur House

The White House Historical Association
1610 H St. NW, Washington, D.C.

The United Kingdom and Ireland in the White House

Dr. Christopher Moran featured in a luncheon panel with Randolph Churchill and Bob Scher, Head of International Affairs for BP America, in The United Kingdom and Ireland in the White House Symposium, held in Washington, D.C. and hosted by The White House Historical Association and White House Historical Association President, Stewart D. McLaurin.

In collaboration with the British and Irish Embassies, the symposium highlighted the rich history of the relationship between the United Kingdom and Ireland with the United States, with presentations on White House architecture, construction, decorative arts, and design.

Ambassadors of the United Kingdom and Ireland provided opening remarks. Other contributors in the symposium included Professor Kathleen Burk, Merlo Kelly, Brian O’Connell, Edward Lengel, William Seale, Surveyor of the Queen’s Works of Art Rufus Bird, and White House Curator Lydia Tederick.

The event also featured Charles Jones, a stonemason from Scotland, who carved a Double Scottish Rose similar to those seen above the White House North Door. Former White House Correspondent Ann Compton moderated the panel of the featured speakers in the late afternoon. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy envisioned a restored White House that conveyed a sense of history through its decorative and fine arts

The luncheon included menus from past White House state dinners with United Kingdom and Irish leaders, and a reception concluded the event with traditional Irish music.

Luncheon Presenters

RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Randolph Churchill was born shortly before the death of his great-grandfather, Sir Winston Churchill, in January 1965. After attending Harrow, Randolph undertook a short service commission in the Royal Navy and served as Gunnery Officer of HMS Alderney in the Coastal Protection Squadron. Upon his completion of the Navigating Officer Course, he was appointed Navigator of HMS Swallow in the Hong Kong Squadron and later promoted to Lieutenant. Subsequently, Randolph attended Buckingham University where he was awarded a degree in Financial Management and Accountancy, before joining Deloitte & Touche where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant. In 1995 Randolph joined Lazard Asset Management, becoming Director of the Charities Division. In 2000 Randolph joined Schroder Private Bank and in 2003 he moved to Rathbones, where he is an Investment Director managing investments for private individuals and foundations. Randolph has also been very active in preserving his great-grandfather’s legacy. He serves as President of the International Churchill Society, an Honorary Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge and, until December 2016, he was a Trustee of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and a Director of the Armed Services Charities Advisory Company.

STEWART D. MCLAURIN

Stewart D. McLaurin was appointed President of the White House Historical Association in May 2014. Stewart’s career spans the non-profit, education, and public policy fields. Over the past 30 years, he has held senior positions with George Washington’s Mount Vernon, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the Motion Picture Association of America, Georgetown University, American Red Cross, and the Federal Government.

CHRISTOPHER MORAN

Christopher Moran is a successful entrepreneur and well-known public figure. Besides his business interests, Dr. Moran has a strong commitment to wider society supporting institutions in a broad range of sectors including national heritage, arts, health and wellbeing, faith and international relations. With an Irish father, Christopher is keenly aware of the complex and historic ties between Britain and Ireland. As Chairman of the charity Cooperation Ireland, he promotes peace and reconciliation working under the joint patronage of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and President of Ireland Mary McAleese. With a passion for national and built heritage, Christopher is funding an ongoing multimillion pound restoration of Crosby Hall. With a forensic attention to detail he is painstakingly bringing one of London’s most historic buildings and the former residence of Sir Thomas More back to its former glory. The Association is grateful to him for hosting an event for us there last summer. Similarly he is involved in one of Britain’s most important heritage projects, the Mary Rose Trust, supporting the development of a new world-class museum for the famous Tudor flagship. He is actively involved in advocating for numerous organizations such as the London Symphony Orchestra, University College London Hospitals Charitable Foundation, and the Prince’s Charities Council for His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales.

ROBERT M. SCHER

Robert M. Scher is the Head of International Affairs for BP America. In this position Bob tracks and analyses U.S. foreign policy as it affects BP’s businesses around the world. Bob has close to 25 years of experience in senior global affairs and national security roles in Washington, D.C., most recently serving as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities in the Pentagon from 2014 to 2017. In that role, he directly advised the U.S. Secretary of Defense on a wide range of global defence, security, strategy, and budgeting matters. Prior to becoming Assistant Secretary, Bob held a series of progressively more senior roles at the Departments of Defense and State, including several focused on Southeast Asia and South Asia. He also served in the private sector as a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton on Asian defence assistance and strategic planning. Bob received his Bachelor’s degree with high honors from Swarthmore College, and a Master’s of International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Symposium Contributors

RUFUS BIRD

Rufus Bird was appointed as Surveyor of The Queen’s Works of Art in January 2018. He is a co-curator of the current Queen’s Gallery, London exhibition ‘Charles II: Art & Power’, and co-edited the accompanying exhibition catalogue. In 2010, Rufus left Christie’s and joined the Royal Collection Trust as Deputy Surveyor of The Queen’s Works of Art, with responsibility for all decorative arts across thirteen Royal Residences. He was a curator on the 2014 exhibition at The Queen’s Gallery ‘The First Georgians’, and also oversaw the production of (and wrote an introduction to volume 2) ‘Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of HM The Queen’, by John Ayers (3 volumes). Rufus joined Christie’s auction house as a graduate trainee and was eventually recruited into the Furniture Department in 1999. Here, Rufus catalogued and researched numerous pieces of English 18th century furniture, including the furniture at Tyntesfield and Dumfries House, Ayrshire—the latter subsequently acquired intact by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2007. Rufus holds an MA in the History of Art from Peterhouse, Cambridge University. He is currently researching and writing on the 18th century history of St James’s Palace.

KATHLEEN BURK

Kathleen Burk is the Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London. She received a B.A. in history and political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA and DPhil in Modern History at Oxford University; she then remained in Oxford for three years as the Rhodes Research Fellow for North America and the Caribbean. She was the Gresham Professor of Rhetoric in the City of London from 2003 to 2006, a chair founded by the Elizabethan financier Sir Thomas Gresham. Kathleen has been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and a Visiting Professor in Korea, Germany, and Norway. Amongst her books are Old World, New World: Britain and America From the Beginning (2007), which won the Henry Adams Prize, and The Lion and the Eagle: The Interaction of the British and American Empires 1783-1972, to be published in August 2018. Burk specializes in Anglo-American relations. She also has a career in wine: she judges it, writes about it, and assesses German, Austrian and Virginian wines for the wine guide, Wine Behind the Label. She has also co-authored a book, Is This Bottle Corked? The Secret Life of Wine.

ANN COMPTON

Ann Compton is a former reporter and White House correspondent. As the first woman assigned to cover the White House for network television, she worked for ABC News for 41 years, retiring in 2014. Compton’s career spanned seven presidents and 10 presidential campaigns. She anchored and reported from the White House and traveled to all fifty states, as well as six continents. Compton was with President George W. Bush on September 11, 2001, and was the only broadcast reporter permitted to stay on Air Force One to report on behalf of the press during the chaotic hours following the terrorist attacks. For that reporting, which she considers the most significant story of her career, Ann received special recognition in the awards given for ABC’s coverage, including an Emmy, a Peabody, and the Silver Baton from the DuPont Awards at Columbia University. Her colleagues elected Compton as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association for 2007-2008. She has been inducted into six halls of fame and has been awarded five honorary doctorate degrees. She serves on the Governing Council of the Miller Center for presidential studies at the University of Virginia. Her alma mater is Hollins University, Virginia.

HIS EXCELLENCY SIR KIM DARROCH

His Excellency Sir Kim Darroch presented his credentials to President Barack Obama as Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the United States on January 28, 2016. Kim’s diplomatic career spans three decades and has been primarily focused on national security issues and European Union policy. Kim served as National Security Advisor, from January 2012 to September 2015 acting as Secretary of the National Security Council and leading the National Security Team on issues such as the rise of Daesh in Iraq and Syria, Russian aggression in Ukraine, the nuclear threat from Iran and the collapse of government authority in Libya. Prior to his appointment as National Security Advisor, Kim served in Brussels as the UK Permanent Representative to the European Union from 2007 to 2011, representing UK interests in areas such as enlargement, the aftermath of the financial crisis, and the issues revolving around European integration. From 2004 to 2007, Kim served as EU Advisor to the Prime Minister and Head of the Cabinet Office European Secretariat. In 1997, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG), and as a Knight Commander (KCMG) in 2008.

CHARLES JONES

Charles Jones is a master stonemason from Carnoustie, Scotland. Jones underwent his apprenticeship in Edinburgh as a Banker and Fixer Mason from 1996 to 2000 under Historic Environment Scotland; this was based at Arbroath Abbey in Angus but involved travel to and work on other prestigious sites including Stirling Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and some of Scotland’s Castles in and around the Angus area. After completing his apprenticeship in 2000, Charles moved to the North of England to work on the World Heritage site Durham Cathedral, predominantly on the Chapel of the Nine Alters, but also the Cloisters, Prebends Bridge, the Library and the College Estate. In 2005 Charles returned to Scotland where he took up the post of Stonemason once again with Historic Environment Scotland. A year later Charles was awarded The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) William Morris Craft Fellowship, which permitted him to conduct a yearlong study of repairs in and around the United Kingdom. Since 2010, Jones has worked as Training Manager overseeing a state-of-the-art Stonemasonry Training Facility in Stirling, Scotland, which serves as the training location for Historic Scotland’s Building Conservation Centre.

MERLO KELLY

Merlo Kelly is a practicing architect with Lotts Architecture & Urbanism and has been teaching in the School of Architecture at the University College, Dublin since 2006. She has a B.Arch. and Masters in Urban and Building Conservation (MUBC) from UCD. In 2012, she was awarded the ICOMOS Rachel MacRory Memorial Award for her MUBC thesis entitled, ‘Luke Gardiner and the Gardiner Estate—Conserving an Urban Morphology’, a study of the development of eighteenth-century north Dublin. In 2013, Merlo was the recipient of an Arts Council architectural bursary for an investigation of the Roman domus. Recent collaborative research projects include a study of twentieth-century architecture in Dublin culminating in More than Concrete Blocks vols.1&2 (2016/2018), and the NIAH architectural inventory of Dublin city. Merlo has written on Dublin’s architectural history, and disseminated her research in several public lectures and tours. In 2015, she was invited to give the Irish Georgian Society Knight of Glin Memorial Lecture. Recent publications include ‘Give and Take: Luke Gardiner and the making of the north city’ in Portraits of the City—Dublin and the Wider World (2012), and ‘An Introduction to the Architectural Heritage of Dublin North City’(2015).

EDWARD G. LENGEL

Edward G. Lengel is a renowned historian of World War I and by training specializes in the history of Ireland and Great Britain. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia in 1998, and was for many years Professor and Director of the George Washington Papers project. Lengel has written several award-winning books, including First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His—and the Nation’s—Prosperity (2016); Thunder and Flames: Americans in the Crucible of Combat, 1917-1918 (2015); To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 (2008); and General George Washington: A Military Life (2005). He writes regularly for Military History Quarterly, American History and other periodicals, and has made television appearances on The History Channel, Fox News, and National Public Radio. Edward works closely with the White House Historical Association in an advisory capacity as a senior scholar.

HIS EXCELLENCY DANIEL MULHALL

Daniel Mulhall presented his credentials to President Donald Trump as Ambassador of Ireland to the United States on September 8, 2017. He joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1978 and had his early diplomatic assignments in New Delhi, Vienna (OSCE), Brussels (European Union) and Edinburgh where he was Ireland’s first Consul General (1998-2001). He served as Ireland’s Ambassador to Malaysia (2001-2005), to Germany (2009 to 2013), and before coming to Washington he served as Ireland’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom (2013-2017). He had held a number of high-level posts in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and was part of the Irish Government’s delegation at the time of the Good Friday Agreement, 1998. Ambassador Mulhall was born and brought up in Waterford and undertook his undergraduate and post-graduate studies at University College Cork where he specialized in modern Irish history. He is author of A New Day Dawning: A Portrait of Ireland in 1900 (Cork, 1999) and co-editor of The Shaping of Modern Ireland: A Centenary Assessment (Dublin, 2016). A keen advocate of public diplomacy, Ambassador Mulhall makes regular use of social media in order to provide information on the work of the Embassy, to highlight Ireland’s achievements and to engage with Irish communities and those around the world with an interest in Ireland.

BRIAN O’CONNELL

Brian O’Connell is a practicing architect for O’Connell Mahon Architects in Ireland. He received a bachelor of architecture degree from National University of Ireland (1968); Barrister at Law from Kings Inn Dublin (1979); and Master of Building and Urban Conservation (2011) from National University of Ireland. He was elected to the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) in 1970; named a Fellow in 1987; and served as its president from 1991 to 1992. As President of the RIAI Brian initiated the foundation of the Architects Council of Europe; and was appointed Chairman of the European Commission GAIPEC on Liability in the European Construction Industry. Brian’s premise, as a conservation architect, is that the circumstances at the turn of the nineteenth century favored the creation of a Hiberno-Palladian White House as an enduring monument to the socio-cultural origins of modern America, epitomizing a first phase in U.S. architecture deeply informed by a particular European ethos.

FREDERICK J. RYAN, JR.

Frederick J. Ryan, Jr. serves as Chairman of the White House Historical Association, and Publisher and CEO of The Washington Post. Until 2014, he served as President and CEO of POLITICO, which he co-founded in 2007. Mr. Ryan served in the White House as Assistant to the President, and later as Chief of Staff to former President Ronald Reagan.

CURTIS SANDBERG

Curtis Sandberg serves as Director of the David M. Rubenstein National Center for White House History and as Senior Vice President of Educational Resources under the aegis of the White House Historical Association. Before joining the Association, he was Senior Vice President for Arts and Cultural Programs at Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C., where he directed the Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy and created projects with the U.S. government and other nations for audiences in this country and abroad. Sandberg holds a B.A. degree in classical archaeology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in anthropology from Harvard University. Curtis has had extensive museum experience in the United States, Europe, and Asia, working in a variety of fields. He has collaborated on archaeological projects in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States and lived in Italy for many years. As a Rotary International Fellow, Sandberg studied at the University of Padua. He is also a Fulbright-Hays Fellow, a Harvard Sinclair-Kennedy Fellow, and a Whiting Fellow.

WILLIAM SEALE

William Seale is an American historian and author. He attended Southwestern University in Texas and completed his Ph.D. at Duke University in North Carolina. An independent scholar since 1965, he has written extensively on the White House and has participated in the restoration of many state capitols. His latest work, A White House of Stone: Building America’s First Ideal in Architecture was published by the White House Historical Association in 2017. William is also the editor of the journal White House History, the award-winning quarterly of the Association.

LYDIA TEDERICK

Lydia Tederick is the Curator of the White House. She received her M.A. in Museum Studies, with an art history concentration, from The George Washington University in 1980. She also has a B.A. in art history and political science from Northern Arizona University. She has been part of the White House curatorial staff since 1979. Lydia has lectured and published articles on the White House collection and specializes in historic photographs of the Executive Mansion. Her recent articles for White House History include “Photographs of the Lincoln White House” and “Uriah Levy’s Gift to the Nation: A Statue of Thomas Jefferson by Pierre-Jean David d’Angers.” Tederick’s current research focuses on Sir William Orpen and the 1919 portrait of President Woodrow Wilson.

Musical Program

ALEX BOATRIGHT

A multiple All-Ireland medalist, Alex Boatright is committed to making traditional Irish music accessible to students of all levels. With All-Ireland winning students, Alex is a sought after teacher on the East Coast. Growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, Alex studied intensively with harpist and concertina player Grainne Hambly of County Mayo, Ireland, and travelled to New York to study with famed fiddle pedagogues Rose Flanagan and Brian Conway. In addition to her studies as a traditional musician, Alex performs regularly on classical cello and holds a Masters of Music degree in Cello Performance from the University of Maryland. Her teaching style fuses the practical practice techniques and pedagogical foundations of classical training with proper technique and styling of traditional music to help students achieve fluidity and comfort in a traditional sound at a high level.

PETER BRICE

Peter Brice serves as Executive Director of the New Century American Irish-Arts Company. He is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory Preparatory Program and holds a BA in Irish Traditional Music and Dance from the University of Limerick. A native Annapolitan and an exponent of Baltimore, Maryland’s Irish traditional music community, Peter’s work blends singing and musicianship with musicology and history, humor and colorful design, and a vision for traditional culture as a foundation for an intellectual life. A lifelong singer, Peter has married a repertoire of American historical songs with a wide-ranging English-language style that he gleaned from his teachers Dónal Maguire and the late Louis Killen. He is a former vice-chair of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann’s O’Neill-Malcom Branch in Washington, D.C., and a past co-coordinator of the Washington Folk Festival. He founded the Baltimore Singers Club with singers Andy O’Brien and Pat Egan to promote traditional singing in Maryland, and was a founding member of the Old Bay Ceili Band. In 2014, he and his mentor Billy McComiskey were recognized by the Maryland State Arts Council as a traditional arts master-apprentice pair.

CHARLES KING

Bagpiper Charles King is a member of the City of Alexandria Pipes and Drums, the official band of Alexandria, Virginia, and one of the premier pipe bands in the United States performing in the Scottish regimental tradition. He has over thirty years of experience. He received funding to attend the College of Piping in Glasgow, where he studied with renowned Pipe Major John D. Burgess. King has performed at the British Embassy, Washington, D.C., and for several branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. In the summer of 2018, he will join the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo as a member of The Pipers’ Trail, a group of musicians selected from around the world to perform alongside Shetland fiddlers Hjaltibonhoga and the bands of the British Armed Forces.

More information can be found via the White House Historical Association: https://www.whitehousehistory.org/

/ Official Press Release:
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/one-day-symposium-the-united-kingdom-and-ireland-in-the-white-house-300631461.html