{"id":277639,"date":"2025-07-20T15:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T15:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/277639\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T15:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T15:05:11","slug":"hosting-open-a-tribute-to-people-of-northern-ireland-says-george-mitchell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/277639\/","title":{"rendered":"Hosting Open a \u2018tribute\u2019 to people of Northern Ireland, says George Mitchell"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a \u201cspecial treat\u201d to return to Northern Ireland for the Open at Royal Portrush, former US senator George Mitchell has said.<\/p>\n

Mr Mitchell, who chaired the 1998 Good Friday negotiations to their successful outcome, said hosting the Open was a \u201ctribute to the people of Northern Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the PA news agency at the tournament on Sunday, Mr Mitchell said: \u201cIt is a great pleasure for me to return to Northern Ireland at any time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent six years here working towards peace and I\u2019ve had the pleasure of coming back often since then.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a special treat for me because my son Andrew, who was born during the time I worked in Northern Ireland, is a very good golfer and very much interested in golf.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so the chance to travel with him back to Northern Ireland and to be at the Open is really, for me, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 91-year-old said: \u201cWe\u2019ve had a great time, he walked the entire course yesterday. I couldn\u2019t do that, but I enjoyed watching the golfers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Mitchell said he was hoping for a \u201cgreat outcome\u201d on the final day of the Open.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cFor me, although I\u2019m an American and proud of it, always will be, a very large part of my heart and my emotions will always be in Northern Ireland with the great people here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Asked about the progress made in Northern Ireland since the peace process, which now saw the region hosting high-profile international sporting events, Mr Mitchell said: \u201cI think too many people \u2013 here and elsewhere \u2013 associate Northern Ireland with political violence and upheaval.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in fact, as we\u2019ve seen over the last quarter-century, the people of Northern Ireland are energetic, intelligent, active and I think it is a great place to live, work, visit \u2013 whether you\u2019re here to watch a golf tournament or do anything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think it is, in a way, a tribute to the people of Northern Ireland that the Open is here again and hopefully will be back again often.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt is pretty hard to top Portrush on a beautiful weekend as has been the case this weekend, and so I look forward to coming back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a \u201cspecial treat\u201d to return to Northern Ireland for the Open at Royal Portrush, former US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[104749,2826,104750,1144,6222,24412,104751,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-277639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-george-mitchell","9":"tag-golf","10":"tag-good-friday","11":"tag-northern-ireland","12":"tag-open-championship","13":"tag-royal-portrush","14":"tag-troubles","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114886182714185568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}