On 14 January 1989, as Ronald Reagan prepared to leave office, the Irish Times carried an article by the former Ambassador of the Republic of Ireland to the United States, Sean Donlon, entitled ‘Reagan's Irish Connection’. This article chronicled the relationship that outgoing President Ronald Reagan had with Ireland. This relationship stretched back to the 1940s when Reagan, in his capacity as a Hollywood representative, first visited Ireland. Later, as Governor of California in the 1970s, Reagan visited Ireland on behalf of President Nixon and travelled the south and west of the country, stopping at the Rock of Cashel. Donlon suggested that Reagan's ‘interest in Ireland went deeper than sentiment and story. The challenge for Ireland was to channel that interest to advantage, knowing that there was likely to be an especially close relationship with his ideological soul-mate at No 10 Downing Street’. Later, Donlon recalled his own role in Reagan's relationship with Ireland: ‘During the campaign I went to see Reagan to ask him what part of Ireland he came from, where his family came from. ‘No, no’, he said, ‘my people were not Irish, we’re English’. He believed it and he was absolutely right, he got his brother, who was a doctor, to give me copies of family papers and, right enough, it showed, as far back as they were able to go was to the UK’.