Irish students declare war on their US rite of passage

[emad]

The Times
By David Lister

FOR years it was the dream of every self-respecting Irish student: after a year denouncing British oppression in the college bar, the only way to spend the summer was sipping Guinness surrounded by plastic leprechauns in a Boston pub.

Five years ago, thousands of students camped out overnight to get a visa to spend four months in the Irish-loving paradise of Bill Clinton and the Kennedys. Now George W. Bush is begging them to visit.

Days after the President was sworn in for his second term, his Ambassador to Ireland has embarked upon a charm offensive to persuade the youth of the Irish Republic that the US is “not what they just see in the headlines every day”.

Ireland’s youth is so out of love with America that the number of students applying for a summer visa scheme has halved within a year.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1460612,00.html