ONE memo from a senior US official accused her of an "irrational obsession". A newspaper article accused her of comparing Irish Americans to pigs. Another figure called her "snippy".
But Trina Vargo has has been at the sharp end of things in her role of advising senior US politicians over several decades. She was foreign policy adviser to Senator Edward Kennedy and worked on Irish issues with every Democratic Party nominee for president from Michael Dukakis to Barack Obama.
Now she has written a book on her experiences, and called it Shenanigans, which, as we say in these parts, doesn't miss and hit the wall.
Overall Vargo is seeking to find out whether the long, lucrative relationship between Ireland and the United States is destined to decline, or is it still viable?
"If we are to maintain the relationship for future generations it will require resources and I am trying, through the book, to learn if anyone cares enough or not," she says. Shenanigans puts it thus: "The relationship has for too long been largely about what the US can give to Ireland" – an approach she describes as having "worn thin with most American politicians and philanthropists".
Without radical, rapid recalibration, Ireland – north and south – "will soon find no-one is at home when they come knocking," Vargo says. "That is already happening."
In her quest, Vargo has tales to tell about figures from Irish-American newspaper publisher Niall O'Dowd, who she says fell out with her more than a decade ago, to Van Morrison. But, often, the book does not contain their sides of the story.
"I'm not a journalist; there'd be no reason for me to ask for anyone's replies to my experience," she argues.
I venture to ask whether she believes the causes of her being apparently cold-shouldered and treated negatively, as she alleges in her book, could have anything to do with her personal style or strategy.
"No," she replies. "It's human nature that some people feel threatened by anything new and different. Taxi companies don't like Lyft and Uber; that doesn't mean Lyft and Uber are bad ideas. Also, this is a question that is often asked of women and rarely men.
"Niall O'Dowd has tried, unsuccessfully, for years to get a special deal for the Irish who are illegally in the US. Has anyone ever asked him, 'Is the reason you haven't succeeded because of your personal style or strategy'?"
As in her book, she quotes Machiavelli, saying "the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions".
O'Dowd, a veteran figure on the Irish American scene, is brother-in-law of the man who charged Vargo with the 'pigs' slur. She had, in a newspaper op-ed, said that trying to help the Irish undocumented in the US was like like "trying to put lipstick on a pig".
She did not come lightly to a decision to write her book, she says, but concluded that remaining silent "made me part of the problem".
In it she doesn't shy from calling things as she sees them. For example, it was a "common refrain" from anyone lobbying for money for Northern Ireland, she says, that it would prevent things slipping back "to the bad old days".
"But there was nothing to suggest International Fund for Ireland funds did anything to prevent any violence..."
She also led the charge, from around 2005 onwards, on the view that there was no longer any need for a US 'special envoy' for Northern Ireland, against a sometimes formidable campaign.
"There are many people, most I'd say, in Northern Ireland who want Northern Ireland to have a modern economy that is not dependent on subventions. Most people there want their politicians to step up. One former politician there told me that the US should not send an envoy, that it was time to 'take off the stabilisers'".
The book adds that although what senator George Mitchell – after whom the scholarship scheme Vargo helped to set up is named – did in the mid-1990s was "critical and necessary... what's needed now are for the leaders there to just lead".
I point out that, far from leadership, the entire devolution project has been in stalemate for two years, and counting, with no momentum towards its restoration. So has the entire propping up from Irish America been for naught ?
"No, she replies. "Thousands of people are alive today because of the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement. It will never have been for naught. That is separate from the real feelings of many that, given all that is going on in the world, Northern Ireland's political leaders need to lead for the benefit of all the people of Northern Ireland."
Vargo keeps herself well informed, including on Brexit. Last year she drove along the border and she recalls visiting Ireland in the days of a hard border.
"There is no question that no border is better. The best hope for Northern Ireland is if the so-called middle ground rises. At present the extremes on both sides are keeping Northern Ireland from flourishing.
"One recent example of the middle rising was how the business community made very clear that a return to a hard border is not wanted and that a hard Brexit would not be a good thing for Northern Ireland.
"Not unlike in the US, more civic participation is required; it's on all of us to vote in the sort of leaders that we want."
She doesn't much like talking about herself but says she has a "mix of ancestries" including Irish on her mothers' side.
"The family name was Doherty, likely from Donegal, but they came to the US so long ago that I'm still researching. But it's just not relevant... it's not about me," she insists.
"The real question is whether or not future generations can be interested in a contemporary relationship with the island [of Ireland] – but that relationship has to be created.
"And I'm quite realistic about saying, maybe there just isn't the interest. That's what we're trying to ascertain."
:: Trina Vargo is president of the US-Ireland Alliance. Her book Shenanigans, published by Cavan Bridge Press, New York, is out now.
