February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
It was the last named role, however, that got him an invitation to the St. Patrick’s Day party at the White House in Washington D.C., and also a private chat with President Barack Obama.
First Lady Michelle Obama, though, knew Lawless from the Gage, the fashionable restaurant and bar he opened on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue in early 2007. She’d been there a few times before the 2008 presidential campaign began in earnest.
Showing the warmth she’s exhibited on the world stage in recent days, she took Lawless’s hand as they posed with her husband, and Padraig Conneely, the mayor of Galway, one of Chicago’s twin cities. “She’s very personable,” Lawless said.
“I was a little bit flippant,” he recalled. “I said to her: ‘Mrs. Obama, I’m a guest in your house tonight. The next time in Chicago, may I be the host in my restaurant?’ So she started laughing.
“She gave me the thumbs up when I was going. It was a memorable occasion. I won’t forget it,” he said.
Lawless had previously met Senator Obama a number of times both as a member of the Chicago Celts for Immigration Reform and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
The signs from that first meeting with Obama as president were positive.
“He did say to me that he spoke with the taoiseach that day and said he hopes to have comprehensive immigration reform by the end of the year,” Lawless reported.
The Rev. Michael Leonard, the County Clare priest who is chaplain to the region’s Irish immigrant community, said of Lawless “He’s larger than life, a guy who has made a great name for himself in Chicagoland. He is very well connected in the city.”
Added Leonard: “He has been a tireless supporter of many causes in the Irish community, chief among which is his work for the undocumented members of the Irish diaspora.”
“It’s moving big time,” Billy Lawless said of the issue. He cited Chicago’s Luis Guti