Gov. Martin O?Malley flew to Dublin on Thursday night to give the keynote address for the 10th anniversary of the Irish Institute of Boston College, a program that brings officials, professionals and policymakers from the north and south of Ireland to the United States for exchange programs.
O?Malley said that as mayor of Baltimore, he had hosted several groups from the Irish Institute, which will pay his way there. Major funding for the institute comes from the U.S. State Department.
“The goal of the Irish Institute is to advance the peace process” in Ireland through cross-border and cross-community programs, said Thomas Hachey, head of the college?s Center for Irish Programs.
Hachey said that groups of Irish leaders had visited Baltimore on at least three occasions, primarily to see the CitiStat program.
In 2003, the institute brought then-Mayor O?Malley to Ireland to discuss the impact of the program, which uses continual performance measurement to enhance delivery of public services. As governor, O?Malley has created StateStat and BayStat to mirror the city program.
In an interview from Dublin, Hachey described O?Malley?s presentations on CitiStat as a “smash success.” “We?ve had dozens of people like him” to talk to the Irish participants, “but the people that we chose [for the anniversary conference] are back by popular demand,” Hachey said.
O?Malley will give his talk about improving government operations Saturday evening at St. Patrick?s Hall in Dublin Castle. Hachey estimates about 250 Irish leaders from the Republic and Northern Ireland will attend, some of the 600 alumni of Irish Institute programs. The reception and speech culminates two days of seminars on politics, government, religion and communications.
O?Malley?s Irish connections include his former band, O?Malley?s March, which played and sang Irish music, and also toured Ireland. Irish-born Colm O?Comartun, O?Malley?s personal assistant ? whose formal title is director of the governor?s office ? is also the former director of the Irish Institute at Boston College, and will attend the conference with him.
Baltimore, of course, is named after Maryland?s founding proprietor, the second Lord Baltimore, Cecil Calvert, whose barony was based in Baltimore, a small seafaring town on the south coast of Ireland.
O?Malley expects to return to Annapolis early next week, a press aide said.
