President Mary Robinson was inundated with letters from people outraged by the X Case in early 1992, with US and UK groups raising human rights concerns and accusing Ireland of “exporting its problems”.
Aer Rianta sought a Government contribution towards the IR£100,000 cost of lavishly hosting Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at Shannon Airport in 1989.
A brutal “gay bashing” attack in Sligo which left a well-known US author with brain damage and requiring the use of a wheelchair threatened to prove “a public and media embarrassment” for Ireland.
The government was worried that a decision by President Patrick Hillery to decline an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer could be “misinterpreted” both domestically and internationally at a time of strained Anglo-Irish relations.
President John F Kennedy’s wife Jackie phoned the Irish embassy in Washington DC from the White House just hours after the assassination of her husband in Dallas to personally ask if the Defence Forces’ cadets could play a role in his state funeral procession.