Naomi O’Leary:
Hello, welcome to Irish Passport.
Tim McInerney:
Let’s do it.
Naomi O’Leary:
Welcome to the Irish Passport.
Tim McInerney:
I’m Tim McInerney.
Naomi O’Leary:
I’m Naomi O’Leary.
Tim McInerney:
We’re friends. Cé he bhfuil tú Naomi?
Naomi O’Leary:
Go hana mhaith ar fad, Tim. This is your passport to Irish culture, history and politics. I’m recording. 1 2 3. OK.
Tim McInerney:
OK. Hello, everyone.
Naomi O’Leary:
Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the Irish Passport. So today we are examining the relationship between Ireland and Europe, both today and in the past.
Tim McInerney:
Yes, we are. We’re examining the country’s relationship with the continent over the centuries and what might lie ahead for it in this moment of upheaval.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yes, we are, of course, talking about Brexit, the UK leaving the EU, which is an incredibly complicated process which has implications for everything from nuclear energy to whether planes can take off the ground. And it also had massive implications for Ireland, not least because of that complex, uncontested border that cuts across the island of Ireland, as we discussed in our first episode.
Tim McInerney:
There hasn’t really been a debate about whether, in Ireland anyway, about whether Ireland is also going to exit the EU, like it’s not even a question.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah. And there are a couple of reasons for this. Like the idea of Ireland leaving the EU is a very minority view in Irish politics, for one, and secondly, opinion polls have shown consistently Ireland to be one of the most pro-EU countries in the whole bloc. So why is this is the interesting question. Why isn’t there a debate? Why are Irish people so different to our close UK neighbours about the question of Europe? So Tim took to the streets of Dublin to ask some ordinary Irish citizens what they think of the EU and whether they feel European as well as Irish.
Tim McInerney:
So if you could say your first name.
voxpop :
Dave
Tim McInerney:
And where do you come from?
VOXPOP :
Waterford.
Tim McInerney:
If there was a vote tomorrow for Ireland to leave the EU, how would you vote?
:
Probably remain.
Tim McInerney:
You hesitated there, why is that?
VOXPOP :
The reaction that I saw in the EU, a certain amount of reaction to a democratic process of Brexit, I felt they were very kind of pompous about it all. A large amount of them are actually unelected yet seemed to wheel a lot of power and I kind of like that Brexit, it was kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face, maybe, but it also took back a little bit of power for what I think could eventually get out of control with the EU.
Tim McInerney:
And do you think there would be any particular advantages for Ireland to leave?
VOXPOP :
Probably more negatives than positives. I think England, Britain, can handle a better because they got a bigger economy whereas I think we would kind of suffer a bit more from it, I think. And I think, around college here, if that would affect the travel of like students from all Europe to come here, that would be a negative.
Tim McInerney:
Okay. Do you feel European yourself?
VOXPOP :
No.
Tim McInerney:
Why not?
VOXPOP :
I think white culture is shaped on being Irish. I don’t know what a European feeling is.
VOXPOP :
Simon Carol.
Tim McInerney:
Simon Carol and?
VOXPOP :
Patrick Austin.
Tim McInerney:
And are you both from Dublin?
VOXPOP :
Yeah.
VOXPOP :
Yeah.
Tim McInerney:
You’re both born and bred Dublin.
VOXPOP:
Yea, I’m from Drumcondra.
Tim McInerney:
And if Ireland were to hold a referendum tomorrow to leave the EU, what would you do?
VOXPOP:
I’d vote to remain, reluctantly. You know, it needs to be reformed but I’d vote to remain.
Tim McInerney:
And what are your reasons for that?
VOXPOP:
Well, I think just as you’ll do more harm in the short term, if you leave, you know, trade deals, free trade deals, and there is a bit of a democratic deficit in it but… It’ll be, in the longer run, it’ll hurt you.
Tim McInerney:
And is that your main objection? The democratic deficit?
VOXPOP:
Well, and I’d probably get rid of the euro, yeah.
VOXPOP:
Would ya?
VOXPOP:
Yeah.
VOXPOP:
Oh, okay.
Tim McInerney:
Would you not?
VOXPOP:
No.
Tim McInerney:
Why? Why not?
VOXPOP:
Because well it’s handy. That’s the easiest answer, I suppose.
VOXPOP:
Your interest rates are tied to your German exports, so I mean it’s basically a German-run currency.
VOXPOP:
Okay. Well, if you want to be pedantic.
VOXPOP:
It’s not pedantic, it’s a technical, it’s detail. That’s detail, man.
Tim McInerney:
Do you feel European?
VOXPOP:
Yeah.
VOXPOP:
Oh yeah absolutely, very much so.
:
Well I am European.
Tim McInerney:
And what does that mean to you?
VOXPOP:
Well it means, it’s culture. It’s literature. It’s art. It’s that kind of thing.
:
Do you think we’d lose something if we left?
VOXPOP:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we would but like I said, apart from the economic side of the more important stuff, you know, culture and literature and free movement is great. You know, that’s a great thing.
VOXPOP:
Have you lived in another EU country at any point?
VOXPOP:
Yeah.
VOXPOP:
Yeah. Lived in Germany. Lived in Spain.
Tim McInerney:
Okay.
VOXPOP:
Over the years, and that’s probably one of the main reasons why I wouldn’t want to leave. Because I do see myself as well Irish first and European second,
VOXPOP:
You’re just isolating yourself, especially in the modern world. You know, in different political blocs.
VOXPOP:
I mean, there’s 500 million people in the European Union. It’s the biggest single biggest free trade area in the world so I think that’s you know, it’s pretty moot argument.
VOXPOP:
And also the English or the British, mainly the English really voted to leave because they didn’t think about Ireland when they were voting. So why should we think about them? It’s Ireland first and being part of Europe I think is much better.
Tim McInerney:
And speaking of that, what about the border then? The border question.
VOXPOP:
I don’t know how they’re going to work that one out actually.
VOXPOP:
I would be worried about it. I’m worried about it.
VOXPOP:
If they eventually leave.
VOXPOP:
I would, I mean, there’s all sorts of tension still up there.
VOXPOP:
Well, you see if we have the vote they become part of Ireland. You see, that’s another story. Vote the DUP, can’t see that happening so.
Tim McInerney:
Right. Do you think this could lead to a united Ireland under some circumstances?
VOXPOP:
Yeah, it could.
VOXPOP:
Could do, yeah.
VOXPOP:
Absolutely, it just depends if they can get, like you said though with the DUP there they won’t get a border poll. Depends how hard they’re hit economically; a lot of it will come down to the economics of it.
VOXPOP:
I think farmers will have a lot to say because it’s cross-border farming.
VOXPOP:
All the border counties have said they don’t want any kind of hard border there so.
VOXPOP:
It could but except no one really knows at the moment, that’s the problem. The Conservatives don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t have a clue.
Tim McInerney:
The question I put to you is, if there are a referendum tomorrow to leave the EU for Ireland, leave the EU. How would you vote and why?
VOXPOP:
Look around you. Every bit of EU money is after being spent around here. This would be a fucking desolate country if there was no EU stuff so I’d vote to say in and not do what the English did.
VOXPOP:
Like I know nothing about it, but I’d probably vote to stay in the EU because there’s so much trouble going on with Britain, do you know what I mean? Like even Brexit, I’m still not 100% sure of what Brexit is but there’s so much trouble and like drama going on over because they’ve left the EU.
Tim McInerney:
Do you guys feel European?
VOXPOP:
I definitely do. Sometimes not because I’m Malaysian as well.
VOXPOP:
Davy, be serious.
VOXPOP:
I am being serious, but I would feel European because we are a apart of Europe for so long.
Tim McInerney:
What about yourself?
VOXPOP:
Yeah, like I would feel European. It’s kind of a hard question. How would you actually feel European?
VOXPOP:
Yeah, I don’t know.
VOXPOP:
Do you know what I mean? How would you feel Asian? How would you feel American and stuff, do you know what I mean?
VOXPOP:
Well I feel European because I can travel to anywhere else in Europe, you’re basically, without getting a visa, so that would make me feel European.
Tim McInerney:
Do you think migration from the EU has made Ireland a better or worse place?
VOXPOP:
Yeah, it wouldn’t bother me.
VOXPOP:
It doesn’t have an effect on us so I don’t see why we wouldn’t want them to come work. We are already help them here as well so it wouldn’t make a difference.
VOXPOP:
My name is Patrick. Die hard working class ok?
Tim McInerney:
Ok. And what do you think about Ireland’s relationship with the EU?
VOXPOP:
Well, I welcome the project that you’re working on because we don’t discuss it enough, we should. I don’t take a simplistic view of the Brexit, the British Brexit thing, that it’s necessarily the evil that it’s been described as. Don’t know, and we won’t know until time will tell, you know. I was living in England when the currency issue was being debated. It was crazy. And we were laughing at them. I went to the U.K. and they had a different perspective. And that was when I really began to think that we should think critically. Not necessarily criticize and bitch about Europe or bitch about Britain either. Don’t take a side, be objective and sit down and work out all of the pros and cons before we actually make decisions instead of shooting from the hip, which is what the politicians do. We gonna have to educate ourselves about what legislation means and can we be manipulated? Can our futures be manipulated by legislation? Because we can be and we are. And we might be seeing whether Britain has made a good decision or a bad decision. I’m not going to judge them on that. One thing I do know, I’ve got, personally, I’ve got family who came from the north, and were run out of the north by the British, by the unionists who represented the British opinion over there. Nonetheless, I give the British full credit for making the right decision on the euro, and I’m not prepared to rush to judgment and say that they’ve made a wrong decision on Brexit until we can see how it goes. As a person who wanted a united Ireland, I think strategically Brexit offers opportunities to us. If we could play our cards right and negotiate cleverly on behalf of the people of the north at the moment.
Tim McInerney:
If there was a vote tomorrow about Ireland leaving the EU, how would you vote?
VOXPOP:
That’s a great question. It needs to be really, really scrutinised. I purposely, being a very critical thinker on the issue, would vote for us to stay, for sure. This particular point of time, we do nothing, we wait. We see how it affects Britain and we do our utmost to take advantage of this. So I’ve no intention to be disrespectful of British people but I do want to see a united Ireland. If we were to leave Europe at this moment, it would wreck any chance of a united Ireland. It would go back to Britain dominating the locality, which is what happened before we joined the EU. So I’m conscious of this because my family came from there and I know the people who’re left behind and what they have to put with. If we want to help people of north and south, we stay in; we allow negotiations on the border to see what we’re given, and I would suggest that a lot of unionists, ironically, my great enemies in the corporate sector, may even encourage people to vote for more of a united Ireland, because at the end of the day, they will eventually be more loyal to the half crown than the crown. I can’t really envisage a time where we should leave Europe.
Naomi O’Leary:
A united Ireland. It’s a phrase that people in Ireland just can’t seem to help bringing up when it comes to discussing Brexit. Google searches for the term united Ireland spiked more than 600 percent the day after the Brexit vote. It even featured recently on the front page of the Financial Times. That was back in April and it was because the Irish government had just secured what it saw as an early victory in the Brexit process. Basically, it managed to get the leaders of all the remaining EU governments to agree that if Northern Ireland ever democratically chose to join with the republic into one country, then it would automatically be part of the EU without any need for any sort of entry process. It would basically be just like what happened with the reunification of Germany, so that automatic entry was explicitly stated in notes to the EU’s Brexit negotiating guidelines in April. The 27 remaining EU countries voted unanimously to adopt those guidelines and the vote took less than one minute. I spoke to a man who was in the room. Ireland’s then minister for European Affairs, Dara Murphy. He was fresh out of negotiations and we met up to discuss Ireland and Europe. He told me that unexpectedly, Brexit was drawing Ireland and the rest of the EU closer together and improving the way that the EU works.
Dara Murphy:
I’m chairman of the EPP Europe ministers, as well as being a vice president to the EPP and I’ve been at, must be hundreds of Brexit related meetings. And I have to say, I’ve been at, I don’t know, many, many hundreds of meetings since I’ve been at Europe minister for a few years, three years, I’ve never seen such unity of purpose between the member states, between the institutions and even between the political families as there is on the issue, on the issues, of Brexit. The key elements of the guidelines were agreed yesterday unanimously without dissenting voice from any member state. And I think that that is pretty unique in my time.
Naomi O’Leary:
Are you pleased about this separate document that has language about united Ireland?
Dara Murphy:
Yeah, we are.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah.
Dara Murphy:
The Irish government does not believe this is the time for a poll on a united Ireland. But equally, we have a legally binding international agreement. One of the key elements of this peace agreement is that it does provide for a pathway to a united Ireland through referendums and our simple explicit request was that, you know, the current position of the Good Friday agreement that nothing in Brexit would change the fact that if the united Ireland is achieved by the democratic will of the people, then that part of what would then be Ireland would be part of the European Union as the rest of Ireland is.
Naomi O’Leary:
And do you think that Brexit has made a united Ireland more likely?
Dara Murphy:
I’m not prepared to say , you know that is not a matter for us. That would be a matter in the first instance for the people of Northern Ireland to determine and to work with, you know, within their own communities and ultimately to have a referendum. Given the other challenges that Northern Ireland is currently facing as we all collectively face with respect to Brexit and by we all, I would include, of course, the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, I think we need to focus at this time on ensuring that we minimize the damage for Ireland. All of Ireland, north and south and indeed Europe and the UK. As I say, my own strong view is this is not the time for foreign border poll. But that, of course, would be a matter for others to decide.
Naomi O’Leary:
Is there anything else that you’re particularly pleased about?
Dara Murphy:
I’ve nothing really to add further other than to say that the template for how the European Union has approached this crisis, this difficult reality, this methodology, the Barnier methodology, so to speak, I think is something that A. we need to continue through this process but I have been struck by how effective it has been, so we have all the challenges and, you know, I think maybe in time I think you may well see this type of Barnier approach replicated.
Naomi O’Leary:
So it’s caused an improvement in the functioning of the EU ironically?
Dara Murphy:
I think it has.
Naomi O’Leary:
Really?
Dara Murphy:
Yeah. I think the EU has functioned better than I’ve seen with respect to this, which I don’t think anyone would have predicted. I still very much regret that the UK is leaving, but we will take obviously any unforeseen upsides that we can. And it was a striking meeting yesterday. As I say, it’s for me it was a first and I’m around longer than most of the other people around the table now. Europe ministers don’t last very long generally, but certainly I haven’t seen this degree of consensus between the institutions and the member states before.
Naomi O’Leary:
So you heard there, Tim, that insistence on unity with the rest of the EU, which is very much characterized the Irish government’s stance so far since that Brexit vote. But there is another side to this debate. So I spoke to Ireland’s Eurosceptic.
Tim McInerney:
Singular.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah, there is one at least. His name is Ray Bassett. He’s a retired diplomat and he thinks there hasn’t been a debate on Ireland’s membership of the EU because he accuses the government of being too Europhilic and out of step with the public. And he accuses the media in the same way he thinks it doesn’t countenance such debate, which is kind of strange because he’s been publishing opinion pieces fairly regularly about Ireland leaving the EU over the last year, but anyway, let’s hear from Ray Bassett.
Ray Bassett:
Sometimes I come across, and people write that I’m sort of a mad Irexiter. I think it was a very sad day when Brexit occurred. I regret greatly that we’ve found ourselves in this position. But we’ve got to choose the least, worst way forward now and not let sentiment or kneejerk reaction get in our way. There’s arguable cases for both continuing with the remaining members of the European Union and also looking at the possibility of a new arrangement with the European Union because of our unique situation, particularly the border, what we need cannot be catered for in the normal EU-style arrangements. What I’m trying to do is maintain the present advantageous situation as near as possible. And it seems to me that it’s much easier to negotiate that outside the European Union rather than just stay in one of 27. It’s not an easy thing to do to square this, and I think we should have said from day one that Brexit causes all sorts of problems, that we have to almost become another strand in negotiations. I do think the Irish government is serious enough now. I think they’re going down the wrong path. I think they’ve made a bad decision not to go for a unique settlement. The European Union is changing, and without the British as allies, I think there will be a further move towards a kind of a German-French axis and that’s something that we are very, very uncomfortable with as a lot of smaller countries are. There isn’t a huge identification with Europe, unlike a lot of other places. There isn’t the same attachment, as you would say, in Luxembourg and some other places. We should be discussing every possibility. And in the end maybe staying with the European Union might be the best thing.
Tim McInerney:
Can we just say again that Irexit is a pretty crap name?
Naomi O’Leary:
It’s a terribly crap name. It’s never gonna fly. They’re going to have to think of something else.
Tim McInerney:
I’ve been trying to think of something else myself. I can’t come up with anything else.
Naomi O’Leary:
I’ve heard Eirgo.
Tim McInerney:
Oh no! No, no, please no.
Naomi O’Leary:
Well, it’s not the only problem with Bassett’s argument, unfortunately. So here’s the thing, okay. So the biggest articulation of his argument is in a publication that he wrote for Policy Exchange, which is a right wing think tank in the UK. It’s a sort of a pro-Brexit, sort of environment, you know, with the obscurest funding sources to boot. Bassett’s piece fits right in with that and in with the pre-Brexit literature in general in the UK in that it’s based in a lot of innuendo and not that much concrete fact.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah, OK. Go on.
Naomi O’Leary:
It’s not really original research in the sense that he hasn’t actually calculated or investigated the actual implications of leaving the EU and what it would mean for Ireland, especially economically. So they’re like no footnotes, for example, there’s maybe two. It’s more rhetoric-style argument. And he puts forward some very good arguments against Brexit, right. So he talks about all the crap ways the Brexit is going to affect Ireland, which is all, yeah, that’s totally true, right, it’s going to have a terrible effect but, you know, he lists all this as though he’s making the case for Ireland to also leave the EU. But in fact, all of those downsides is really not clear they would be assuaged if Ireland also left, right. So maybe on leaving the EU, okay then maybe we can better arrange things to protect trade with the UK. And you know what would happen to Apple and Facebook and all of the pharmaceutical multinationals that are based in Ireland? I mean, so the multinationals that are incredibly important to the Irish economy are only there because we’re in the single market because they have access to sell to 500 million people.
Tim McInerney:
Right.
Naomi O’Leary:
They’re not there for the 4.5 million Irish people, that’s for sure.
Tim McInerney:
Sure.
Naomi O’Leary:
Okay. The other thing is, I like this idea that yet the UK is a really important trading partner. It is, it is a really important trading country, but it’s no longer the overwhelming trading partner that it was in the past, okay. If you look at Ireland’s most recent trade figures, the breakdown goes like this: The biggest destination for Irish exports is number one, the United States, followed by Belgium, followed by the UK, followed by Germany. So Irish exports to the UK haven’t been greater than to the rest of the EU combined since the 1970s.
Tim McInerney:
Wow, that is that is a real eye opener, actually. I did not know that.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah. Alright. So the substance of our trade relationship with the UK is the fact that we have this sort of overlapping territory of overlapping national claims. And then we have this traditional relationship, which is based on the fact that the UK doesn’t produce all of the food that it needs, okay. And in large part, Ireland fills that gap. It’s very retro, you know, breadbasket kind of scenario.
Tim McInerney:
That whole thing, yeah.
Naomi O’Leary:
So that means there are some sectors that are really, really dependent. So like, for example, the UK buys 84 percent of Irish poultry exports.
Tim McInerney:
Ok, right.
Naomi O’Leary:
For example, and 65 percent of cheddar cheese that’s sold outside of Ireland.
Tim McInerney:
Okay, right.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah and 80 percent of Irish mushrooms destined for abroad.
Tim McInerney:
Sure, and those are big sectors.
Naomi O’Leary:
Well, mushrooms, isn’t that big but they’re fairly big. They are important. They’re important where they are. They employ lots of local people, very important where they are.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah.
Naomi O’Leary:
But okay, leaving the EU would like jeopardize everything else. Everything apart from those exports.
Tim McInerney:
Right.
Naomi O’Leary:
And those exports, you know, they may not be that secure anyway. So one of the big threats of Brexit, right, is if the UK decides to pursue what’s called a cheap food policy. So they used to do this back in the days before the EU.
Tim McInerney:
What does that mean?
Naomi O’Leary:
Basically, the EU has really, really strict food standards. Trade deals with it take ages because it’s really strict about stuff like beef and all that.
Tim McInerney:
I’m very glad.
Naomi O’Leary:
It means things are a bit more expensive, right, and also it kind of protects farmers in the EU. But anyway, the UK could decide to dispense with all of that and suddenly Irish produce and cheddar cheese would be competing with basically the food equivalent of like cheaply manufactured Chinese electronics.
Tim McInerney:
Right. So this is like the dark side of the bendy banana debate.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yes, exactly. Ok, and that would like crush the mushroom producers anyway, you know, it would crush the cheddar cheese producers anyway. Irexit or no Irexit.
Tim McInerney:
It just doesn’t fall off the tongue, does it?
Naomi O’Leary:
So now did the next big, huge issue is what about the euro? What happens to the euro?
Tim McInerney:
Right.
Naomi O’Leary:
OK. The UK is one thing. It’s not in the eurozone. But Ireland is. If we left, then the bank deposits of every person with an Irish bank account would be converted into a new currency which would probably instantly collapse.
Tim McInerney:
Oh, God. Right. And I don’t think anyone in Ireland wants to see a return to the punt at this stage.
Naomi O’Leary:
Imagine trying to pay back our famous debt in punts.
Tim McInerney:
Bloody hell.
Naomi O’Leary:
Because of course, our huge debt would remain denominated in euros and we’d be paying it back with this whatever currency we have. Like I brought this up with Bassett and he was like, yeah, ok, yeah, that is like the toughest question about it. Okay, so essentially Bassett, right, he’s a euro pessimist, in his view, the EU is doomed. The euro is a currency anyway was going to collapse. You know, he never had faith in it to begin with. So kind of what the hey, you know, let’s Irexit.
Tim McInerney:
Right. OK. So it like he’s arguing essentially that Ireland is more attached to the Anglosphere than to the EU?
Naomi O’Leary:
The evidence that he has for it isn’t very solid at all. It’s more based on innuendo in his writing, but his argument is that Ireland has more historic and emotional and cultural links to like the broader Anglosphere and particularly to the UK than to the EU.
Tim McInerney:
OK. Right.
Naomi O’Leary:
One of the things he states is that the “vast majority” of immigrants from Ireland went to Anglophone countries during the financial crisis. That is actually not true. OK, so according to Irish government statistics in general, more people every single year have gone into the rest of the EU than they have to the UK.
Tim McInerney:
Ok, I’m actually not surprised by that at all.
Naomi O’Leary:
If you add the UK, the U.S., Canada and Australia altogether, there tends to be a greater number going to the whole Anglosphere than into the EU, but not like by loads, you know, like for example, last year in 2016, it was like 44 percent Anglophone countries and 35 percent into the EU.
Tim McInerney:
I’m certainly not actually surprised by what you say because of course, you and me, Naomi, you and I, we both came of age, I suppose just at the cost of this financial crisis. We were looking for jobs at the time, for instance, and so many people we knew moved to European countries on the European mainland. I suppose you could call us part of what they refer to as the Erasmus generation. I mean, we both did the Erasmus programme, but you didn’t necessarily have to do the Erasmus programme to be going to Europe at that stage because the Erasmus programme, which is essentially a subsidized student exchange program, had already set up this really solid kind of network in mainland Europe for Irish people. I went on Erasmus Exchange in Lausanne in Switzerland, during which of course I ended up learning French. And once I had that language that led onto an internship in Paris and then to a job and that eventually led me to living and working here full time. And that’s the story of so many people I know now my age at this stage.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah. Similar story here. So I’m a 2009 graduate here, graduated into the teeth of the financial crisis, also did an Erasmus programme which totally changed my life because I ended up learning Italian, which is why I ended up working as a journalist, because I had the language and it got me my first proper assignment as a reporter in Rome. I must say I also lived in the UK for a while, that was also really important for me, for my career after I graduated. So, I mean, I’m a serial immigrant, Tim, I’m a serial immigrant.
Tim McInerney:
You’re not the only one. But I wanted to point out as well that Ireland’s relationship with the EU has not always been a very happy one, right. There was especially bitter moments around the bailout, this moment of really high tension between Ireland and the EU.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah, and that’s it. So like the bailout time as well as the Nice and Lisbon treaties are typically the ones that people refer to if they want to talk about like moments of Euroskepticism. The reason why this is like a bone of contention is essentially property developers were able to push up property prices enormously between themselves because they were bidding against each other during the boom, the Celtic Tiger years, and that meant that the property prices got inflated up and up because they were able to draw down these huge amounts of loans from Irish banks who in turn were being borrowing loads from international banks, particularly German banks.
Tim McInerney:
Right.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah, and then, of course, in 2007/2008, the crap hit the fan. Suddenly no banks could borrow anymore. And there was a crunch. And the banks, the Irish banks were like frozen in time with enormous liabilities and the property investments they were secured against suddenly collapsed in value and it was total crisis. Ok, so Ireland, the state was at this time struggling to borrow in international markets. States borrow all the time just to fund them, you know they’re running the state, and they were struggling to borrow for affordable rates or at all. And nobody knew how bad it was going to get, right. Everybody was in a total panic. People were worrying is everyone going to, you know, it’s there going to be a run on the banks. Will people pull their money out of Irish banks and collapse them? Blah blah blah. So outcomes in the middle of this panic are then Finance Minister Brian Lenihan. He wasn’t long in the job and he didn’t really have much of a background in finance, worth knowing, anyway so he said basically, he announced to the world, “Don’t worry about the Irish banks. We got them right. We have them.” State guarantee.
Tim McInerney:
Right. These are such depressing memories of this time because, of course, this bankrupted the state, essentially.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah, it bankrupted the state, exactly. Ok, so now Irish state bankrupted and so here is where the EU comes in, right. So in this context of trying to stop what they called contagion at the time when, you know, the crisis, the panic was going from country to country, it basically strong armed Ireland into agreeing to take in huge loans so that, you know, it didn’t go under and the matter was settled. And in return, Ireland had to do a huge austerity program and kind of surrender control over its public spending for a while. And it meant huge cuts to spending and massive tax hikes. And it did this brutally, as you know, Tim.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah, pretty brutally. Like I mean, severe austerity in Ireland for a decade.
Naomi O’Leary:
And everybody was affected. Everybody either had, you know, Oh, you know, we can’t get dental treatment anymore or, you know, my pension’s gone or everybody had real pay cuts and everything. And people emigrating, like ourselves. So, OK, fast forward to today. Everybody lived through that long period of crazy austerity. And now today, the country’s the fastest growing in the eurozone again. But, the people who are at the bottom, the ones who relied on the safety net, they lost out the most. And they’re still losing out because we have the highest level of homelessness on record.
Tim McInerney:
Right. For sure. And you can still very much see the traces of austerity on our society in a way that wasn’t there before. I mean, Ireland was always a pretty poor country in relative terms before the economic boom. But this kind of like homeless people in Galway, a small city, you know, where I come from, had never really been seen before, like you see it today. So it’s you know, that’s a new problem that has come out of this.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the economy is growing and some things are sunny in some respects but I mean, the pain of that of that whole period is very, very much evidence and very fresh in people’s mind. Anyway, so essentially what we have now is we have really different cultural memories about what went on then.
Tim McInerney:
Right. So, yeah, in Ireland. Loads of people feel that they were pushed into this position of austerity by the EU, right. So the impression I came across quite a few times that Ireland as a small state was being bullied by the bloc as a whole. And in the speeches of Nigel Farage, for instance, he often mentions Ireland as an example of what could happen to a small nation and why the EU was unfair. And he used that to campaign for Brexit in the UK.
Naomi O’Leary:
Right. So it felt like Ireland was taking the hit for the whole EU and it was a feeling that was summed up in this confrontation between a popular journalist who’s called Vincent Browne and a guy from the European Central Bank. Can you put this in context first, Tim?
Tim McInerney:
Yeah, right. So this was back in 2012. The guy’s name is Klaus Masuch, if I’m pronouncing it right. Forgive me, Klaus, if I’m not and he makes this a really cringeworthy patronizing remark at a press conference in Dublin at the time where he says that he was really impressed by how well-informed the Dublin taxi drivers were about the economic situation. And it was supposed to be a joke, you know, but it fell really flat. You know, nobody was joking at this point, you know, in the depths of austerity. So, you know, Vincent Brown jumped straight on it and he pretty much demolished him.
Vincent Browne:
Why are the Irish people required to pay billions to unguaranteed bondholders under threat to the ECB? You didn’t answer the question the last time, so maybe you’d answer it this time.
:
I think he doesn’t have anything to add to what he’s already said.
Vincent Browne:
Well, just a minute now. This isn’t good. This isn’t good enough. This isn’t good enough. You people are intervening in this society, causing huge damage by requiring us to make payments, not for the benefit of anybody in Ireland, but for the benefit of European financial institutions. Now, could you explain why the Irish people are inflicted with this burden?
Klaus Masuch:
Well, I think I have addressed the question.
Vincent Browne:
You’ve nothing to say. There’s no answer. Is that right? Is that it? No answer.
Klaus Masuch:
I have given an answer.
:
He’s given an answer.
Vincent Browne:
You have given an answer that doesn’t address the question.
That’s your view.
[skipto time=31:06]Vincent Browne
That is my view. And I think the view of the taxi driver and the view of our viewers tonight.
[skipto time=31:11]Naomi O’Leary
:
OK, so that kind of gives you a flavour of you know, that’s a hugely popular clip and a moment that many people remember in Ireland. It’s a flavour of the emotion around that time.
Tim McInerney:
And, you know, interestingly, Naomi, that was a huge clip in France. It was viral in France with subtitle and everyone is talking about it at the time so that shows you how far it went and what kind of impact it had on the psyche of the EU, that interview.
Naomi O’Leary:
That’s interesting. What I’ve encountered is that there’s a totally different memory of the events from some parts of Europe. Ok, so like in the wealthier European nations like Germany and the Netherlands, there’s a totally different impression of like the whole sequence of events in the bailout.
Tim McInerney:
Right.
Naomi O’Leary:
Right, and it’s not just concerning Ireland. It’s also Spain and Greece and Portugal and basically all the big losers of 2008. People in in the rich northern countries have a really strong kind of self-identity about fiscal rectitude, right.
Tim McInerney:
Right.
Naomi O’Leary:
And they have this odd notion, okay, so it has two parts. The first part is the notion that it was the spending of the Irish people, the ordinary Irish people that got them into trouble, like spent too much and they went bankrupt and they kind of deserve it, you know, they don’t even have the conception that the state went bankrupt because it guaranteed the banks therefore saving, you know, German bondholders and other international bondholders right from being burned and helping to stem the general panic at a time when it was seemed like any European bank could just, like, topple over. That’s the first part. And the second part, the second misconception is they think it was free money. They think Ireland was just like given money by the rich European nations. They don’t seem to realize they were loans. They were loans that had to be paid back with interest and with very, very stiff conditions attached.
Tim McInerney:
Right. Sure. And the international press was really hard on Ireland during that time. And I think a lot of people felt like the whole situation was pretty unfair like that they had been these model EU citizens and suddenly, you know, nobody’s supporting them anymore. So, like, why didn’t that I mean, that was a big fallout really with the EU, why didn’t that lead to a sense of Irexit? Oh, I hate saying that word. I’m sorry. A sense of Irexit along with Brexit. Why didn’t that happen at the same time?
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah, that’s the weird thing, right. That’s the weird thing. It’s just like it’s a big absence. Yeah, you have all that anger. But people did not make the step, “OK, then we should leave the EU.” Not really. There was a big fall in trust the EU at the time, but it’s kind of recovered and there hasn’t been a swell of anti-EU feeling. It’s noticeable that no major party campaigned at any point for and for Ireland to leave the EU. Like you have minor parties on the left who want to like a left wing exit from the EU. But you know, Sinn Féin, who are kind of most successful populist leaning party there, you know, they want to stay in the EU. They’re euro-critical. They want reform. But I mean, so does pretty much everybody. It just it hasn’t materialized. The political parties don’t sense a desire for it. The polls don’t show it. And this is a major, major thing that Ray Bassett leaves out of his analysis. He leaves out the fact that we have a measure of Irish sentiment about the EU, which is really thorough. It’s called the Eurobarometer.
Tim McInerney:
I’m pretty sure I bought a Eurobarometer in IKEA last year.
Naomi O’Leary:
You probably did, Tim.
Tim McInerney:
I’m sure I did.
Naomi O’Leary:
OK. No, it’s a real opinion poll thing, right. So it’s a big collection of surveys in member states, which is run by TNS opinion for the European Commission. And, you know, it goes back gauging opinion on various issues right back to the 1970s. And it’s a huge, gigantic collection of data and of attitudes towards the EU in particular, going back for a very long time.
Tim McInerney:
Great. That’s what that’s really handy.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah.
Tim McInerney:
So what does it show?
Naomi O’Leary:
Handy for our episode, right.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah, big time.
Naomi O’Leary:
OK. So one of the things that the Eurobarometer measures is whether people have a positive or negative image of the EU. As of last November, the most recent one, Ireland has the highest percentage of people who have a positive image of the EU in the entire bloc.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah. OK. I’ve heard that before.
Naomi O’Leary:
55 percent positive compared to like 13 percent for those who have negative.
Tim McInerney:
Ok, well, I mean, honestly, that doesn’t sound that high. 55 percent.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah. I mean, it’s for the EU as a whole. Right. The nebulous institution, as it were. OK. But maybe it’s more instructive to look at the individual policies which are more clear and specific, okay. So like the single currency, for example.
Tim McInerney:
OK. The euro. So for our listeners, this replaced the old currency, the punt, in the Republic of Ireland anyway in about 2002.
Naomi O’Leary:
So when asked about the euro in Ireland, 85 percent of Irish respondents are in favour.
Tim McInerney:
Wow.
Naomi O’Leary:
That compares to an EU wide average of 70 percent. So we’re significantly above there.
Tim McInerney:
OK. I’m actually, I’m shocked by both those figures. But 85 percent, my god.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah. Yeah and now if you look at immigration, okay, so this is about attitudes towards immigration from the EU. Now, of course, opposition to this was a central driving force behind the Brexit vote. You cannot separate the two. OK. So, Tim, if you had to guess what percentage of Irish respondents would you think approve of immigration from the EU?
Tim McInerney:
OK, well, if it’s anything like Britain, surely not very many people approve of that.
Naomi O’Leary:
It’s 81 percent approve of immigration from the EU.
Tim McInerney:
Oh my God. 81 percent.
Naomi O’Leary:
81 percent. And that’s a full 20 percent above the EU average.
Tim McInerney:
I mean, I’m actually bowled over by that. 81 percent. Are these figures biased, Naomi?
Naomi O’Leary:
We can put it up on the website and they show, listen, all polls can be swayed one way or another and sometimes the question leads to a particular answer. But the same question is being asked on all of the EU countries. Not all of them show really high results like that. Some of them have low results. So whatever happens, Ireland seems to respond to this question more positively than the other EU member, the members of the EU bloc.
Tim McInerney:
Wow, I mean, like it’s really astonishing. Even if it was anything approaching 81 percent, even if it was 60 percent like that would be massive. Like it might be worth appreciating here that there was very little in migration in Ireland until it joined the EU. You know, for the last 100 years, the country has been pretty, pretty desperately poor. So people spent most of their time trying to get out of it rather than ever trying to get into it. But then during the economic boom, like you said, during the 90s and 2000s, the country saw its first major influx of migrants, and most of them came from EU states, mostly from Eastern Europe, who were benefiting from the EU expansion during those years.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah. And it has meant that Ireland has become more and more European, actually, literally. So as of I think it’s two years ago, our biggest group of non-Irish born people in in Ireland are Polish, not the UK, used to be the UK for a very long time now it’s Polish.
Tim McInerney
Oh, that’s interesting.
[skipto time=38:00]Naomi O’Leary
:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it’s we’re talking, just to give it in context, it’s just under 12 percent of people who were basically like born elsewhere, that are resident in Ireland. The groups that are growing the most, by the way, are like Brazilians, Spanish and Romanian.
Tim McInerney:
Oh, well, that’s an interesting trio.
Naomi O’Leary:
So it turns out in the space of 10 years, at one point between 2002 and 2012, the number of foreign-born people in Ireland actually doubled. You know, after this kind of like extreme change, there’s massive, support, massive support from immigration. And it turns out that we love the freedom of movement aspect of the single market. Okay, so when asked specifically about that fact, the fact that citizens can live and work and study and do business across borders, that has a 90 percent approval rating in Ireland.
Tim McInerney:
Well, I mean, this really warms my heart, you know, because, of course, you know, I’m an immigrant as well in an EU country. So like, it’s just great to see people like approving of this en masse.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah.
Tim McInerney:
Especially from my own country. Is there any specific reason for this that we can pinpoint? I mean, like have we as a nation learned extra empathy from hundreds of years of sending our kids off to live in other countries?
Naomi O’Leary:
I have no idea, to be honest. I really don’t know. I know this is something people question in Italy, because at the moment there’s rising and kind of anti-immigrant sentiment in Italy. And of course, that’s a massive emigration nation as well. And they often ask, well, what about, you know, our sons and daughters who we sent off for so many years to the United States and to France and so on. So I don’t know if we’re kind of unique in that. I recently wrote a piece for Politico, which was about the experiences of people who moved to Ireland to work. And something that they all told me uniformly was that it was warm and it was welcoming, and that if there was any country in Europe where you might want to move to as someone who’s outside, Ireland’s a really good one. People really are nice and friendly.
Tim McInerney:
We better call the Irish Tourist Board stat.
Naomi O’Leary:
No, but honestly and they complained about all sorts of stuff too. Like apparently our houses are crappily built.
Tim McInerney:
They are.
Naomi O’Leary:
and cold and miserable and all this kind of stuff.
Tim McInerney:
They are.
Naomi O’Leary:
Stuff I never knew. But yeah, they nevertheless had great affection for Ireland and even homesick when they eventually left if they did.
Tim McInerney:
Wow! Look at that.
Naomi O’Leary:
Homesick for Ireland. But anyway, I think the interesting thing is to compare in these statistics where the UK sits on the scale. And where Ireland sits on a scale, so they’re just completely — they like bookend the scales, right. So you have all the other countries kind of arranged in the middle and then on any given issue, Ireland will be like the most positive about stuff and the UK will be the most negative, you know.
Tim McInerney:
God. Right.
Naomi O’Leary:
And so, you know, we’re just completely on opposite ends of the scale, which is kind of weird if you think about it, like because we’re so geographically close. Like what is behind that difference?
Tim McInerney:
Well, I suppose, like, if we look at the history, even though we are geographically close, even though we do speak the same language. And even though we have so many interactions on a daily basis with each other, historically we have gone in such different directions when it comes to this question of Europe, you know.
Naomi O’Leary:
OK. Go ahead. Go on. How so?
Tim McInerney:
OK. You’re gonna kill me, Naomi, because I’ve made a list.
Naomi O’Leary:
No, a list! No, I love your list. Stop. Go ahead.
Tim McInerney:
Aw, thank you. OK. Apparently humans are naturally drawn to lists, so it’s probably a good thing. I made a list of three historical moments that I think that illustrate that difference. So, I mean, I think the thing that they have in common with all of them is that Britain has this, you know, long-term narrative of being alone against mainland Europe, while Ireland has this long-term narrative of trying to get away from Britain and join mainland Europe. You know, more or less so they’re almost, you know, kind of diametrically-opposed.
Naomi O’Leary:
OK. So what’s your number one on the list?
Tim McInerney:
OK, so let’s rewind back to the time when the north of Ireland was being colonized by English and Scottish planters.
Naomi O’Leary:
Ok.
Tim McInerney:
You’ll remember this, listeners, from previous episodes, especially Episode 1. So during that time, Gaelic Catholic rulers were being driven off the land in Ulster. This is about the beginning of the 17th century. And Naomi, where did they go?
Naomi O’Leary:
Of course. Of course. They went to Europe. They went to mainland Europe. So this is the famous flight of the Earls. So this happened in about 1607. The Earls basically means like the old Gaelic aristocracy. So essentially, they ended up having to be in exile while their territory was being taken over by this by this plantation project.
Tim McInerney:
Exactly. So you end up with this whole diplomatic envoy, basically, of Gaelic rulers hanging out at the big courts of Catholic Europe in Rome and in Madrid and in Paris, trying to get their lands back.
Naomi O’Leary:
So actually, there’s a really fascinating online resource of this, which you can access. It’s in the University College Cork’s collection called Celt appropriately.
Tim McInerney:
I know it well.
Naomi O’Leary:
So basically it’s a diary of Tadhg Óg Ó Cianáin. So this guy was like a traditional scribe/chronicler, old like Gaelic style roll. He was like attached to one of the Gaelic lords. So he went into exile with them along with like other of their entourage and coterie and so on during the flight of the Earls. And essentially what they did was they had this extremely long, extremely miserable journey. It’s got like this hilarious points. OK. So they’re on their way to Rome. Right. That’s their ultimate destination. But they go through Switzerland. Tim, you have to listen to this. This is how he describes Switzerland. It was strong, well-fortified, uneven, mountainous, having bad roads and no supremacy rule or claimed to submission by any king or prince in the world over the inhabitants. In themselves they form a strange, remarkable, peculiar state. They make their selection of a system for the government of the country each year. Half of them are Catholics and the other half are heretics. And by agreement and great oaths they are bound to one another for their defence and protection against any neighbour in the world who should endeavour to injure them.
Tim McInerney:
Oh, well, you got it in one.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yes, so that’s Switzerland. I suppose you recognized that from your Erasmus year.
Tim McInerney:
I mean, I kind of do, to be honest.
Naomi O’Leary:
So, of course, those like loads of descriptors, those loads of adjectives like classic sign that this has been translated from Irish.
Tim McInerney:
Right.
Naomi O’Leary:
Of course, this was their language at the time. Fast forward to when they get to Italy. OK. Ó Cianáin starts stressing how the Irish are getting special treatment everywhere they go. So the Gaelic lords all arrive in a procession in Rome, ultimately received by the Pope. So they meet the Pope, right? And he asks them to carry the canopy over the blessed sacrament. Here’s how he describes it. Never before did Irishmen receive such an honour and privilege. The Italians were greatly surprised that they should be shown such deference and respect for some of them said that seldom before was any one nation in the world appointed to carry the canopy. They were jealous, envious and surprised that they were not allowed to carry it on this particular day.
Tim McInerney:
Okay. So, right. he’s basically saying that the Irish got special treatment from the Pope.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yes, so special that all the Italians were jealous.
Tim McInerney:
I hate when somebody else carries my canopy.
Naomi O’Leary:
Sadly, the whole thing ends on a slightly sadder note because basically all the Gaelic lords just they start dying. Anyway, they’re all buried under very fancy gravestones in Rome.
Tim McInerney:
Oh, are they still there?
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah.
Tim McInerney:
Oh, cool. Alright. Well, right this death, right, or the fact that they don’t come back anyway, you know, this has huge knock on consequences, right, for the future governance of Ireland because they never did get those lands back from the colonies like they planned to do. So this ushered in a new kind of colonial era in Ireland with those plantations. But you can also see that from these interactions with the European powers, that there was already quite a strong link between England’s political enemies in Ireland and England’s political enemies on the continent, which is fundamental to Irish history, really.
Naomi O’Leary:
So, Tim, what’s your historical moment number two?
Tim McInerney:
OK. So actually, today is for then for our listeners, today is the 14th of July. It’s the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, which of course, kicked off the French Revolution.
Naomi O’Leary:
Oh, God, I feel so ignorant. I always say Bastille. Sorry. I’m going to continue to say that.
Tim McInerney:
I mean, I think people in English normally say Bastille. I think that’s perfectly acceptable. Bu like French people would slap me across the face if I did, so I’ve just got into the habit.
Naomi O’Leary:
Can I please see that next time? I really want to see a tiff over the pronunciation of Bastille.
Tim McInerney:
We’ll do an experiment. We’ll go down to the monument and do an experiment.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah. I would buy tickets.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah.
Naomi O’Leary:
Did you know that one of the main players in the fall of the Bastille was an Irish guy from Ennis.
Naomi O’Leary:
Ennis?
Tim McInerney:
Yeah.
Naomi O’Leary:
Go on. I’m intrigued.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah. Right. His name was James Bartholomew Blackwell. He was a student in the College des Irelandais in Paris and that building is still there. It’s the Irish Cultural Centre today. It’s in the Latin Quarter just near the Sorbonne. And it’s on rue des Irelandais and that tells you quite a lot; that shows you how established the Irish community was in Paris at that point.
Naomi O’Leary:
Of course, they had a road!
Tim McInerney:
Yeah, they had their own street.
Naomi O’Leary:
Tim, from what I remember, basically loads of wealthy Irish Catholics; they used to send their sons to be educated in Paris during the 18th century, right? Because Catholic education, of course, during this time as well as worship was forbidden because of the penal laws.
Tim McInerney:
Right. Yeah. And what’s fascinating about that, actually, is that these students in Paris, they got involved with revolutionary politics.
Naomi O’Leary:
So it’s kind of like, it’s like an Irish Les Misérables.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah. I’d say with, I’d say with a lot less singing and a lot more blood.
Naomi O’Leary:
But yeah, I mean, at this stage it was very romanticized. And the Irish, just like the French at the time, would have seen this as a huge impoverished peasantry overthrowing a tiny, evil, corrupt and opulent overclass. Of course, you know, the French Revolution wasn’t really like that in reality. But that’s you know, that was the kind of propaganda that was put out there and in the minds of Irish students in Paris, you know, if it was possible for French peasants to overthrow the aristocracy of Versailles, then it had to be possible for the Irish peasants to overthrow the colonial ascendancy in Ireland, right?
Naomi O’Leary:
And I can see the cogs of their brain worrying, right? Because how long after the fall of the Bastille that there was a rebellion in Ireland, right?
Tim McInerney:
10 years or nine years. In 1798, the French Revolution basically came to Ireland. And who was there at the head of the army in 1798?
Naomi O’Leary:
Our man from Ennis?
Tim McInerney:
Our man from Ennis! James Bartholomew Blackwell, who had been at the storming of the Bastille, led the Irish into revolution during the 1798 rebellion.
Naomi O’Leary:
Oh my God, I think I’m getting like a historical crush. So this gave like a unifying ideology to the Irish rebels, I suppose that hadn’t been there before?
Tim McInerney:
Exactly right. So from that moment on, there was a political state to aim for, i.e. a French-style Republic. This was an idea that could be backed by everyone in Ireland regardless of their religion. And it remained from 1798 onwards as this fundamental ideal of the Irish nationalist right into the 20th century. And of course, the Irish tricolour was largely modelled on the French flag.
Naomi O’Leary:
Oh, of course. Yeah, so like the — in case you don’t know, you’ve got the green, which is the kind of Irish Republican tradition, and you’ve got the orange, which has got the Orange tradition and peace between them. That’s the symbology.
Tim McInerney:
And like we mentioned in a previous episode, we can’t forget that the Orange tradition, the Presbyterians in Northern Ireland, were highly active in the 1798 rebellion as well.
Naomi O’Leary:
And pro, we must say, yeah, pro.
Tim McInerney:
Oh, yeah, with the Catholics.
Naomi O’Leary:
Of course, the attraction of that French- style of Republicanism was it undermined the sectarian hierarchy that was imposed with the penal laws and had been used to oppress people in Ireland.
Tim McInerney:
Exactly. And it also, you know, it also established two very opposed political systems in Ireland. So, you know, the Irish rebel movement, because it took influence from the French Revolution, not only became anti-British, it became anti-monarchy. And that put it at odds with Britain, which had kind of built itself up as the ideological opposite of revolutionary France and also as kind of the protectors of monarchical tradition in Europe.
Naomi O’Leary:
What about Wolfe Tone? And so he, of course, was the leader of the 1798 rebellion. Did he invite Napoleon over to back them up?
Tim McInerney:
He did. He did. He went to Napoleon and he asked Napoleon come and invade Ireland; help us rebel against the English; set up a French-style Republic in Ireland; and then we’ll help you invade England if you want. That was the idea.
Naomi O’Leary:
Oh my god.
Tim McInerney:
Napoleon agreed, of course he did. And when the 1798 rebellion broke out, Napoleon sent 40,000 French troops across the sea to join the Irish rebels. And just to put this in perspective, if that had succeeded, that would have been the biggest invasion of British territory since the Spanish Armada.
Naomi O’Leary:
So what happened? Why didn’t they arrive?
Tim McInerney:
Oh. It’s this terrible romantic tragedy. Napoleon ships got, they got so close to Irish land, they say that they could throw stones at the shore, but a storm stopped them from landing and kind ripped their fleet apart. And by the time they got anywhere near Ireland, the British army had just come to the coast, and, you know, more or less said, what the hell are you doing here? So it was it was too late, and the Irish rebels were brutally defeated. You know, the Catholics were, of course, forbidden to have any weapons in Ireland, so they were literally fighting the British army with farm implements. A huge number of them all over the country were fighting with pikes mostly so this was a really bloody defeat. And without French help, they were totally doomed. Nonetheless, it really shook up the British at the time. So after this, the whole coast was fortified with these so-called Martello towers to ensure that European armies couldn’t land an army in Ireland again.
Naomi O’Leary:
Of course, there were landings. There were to be landing. Right. I think this brings us round to our third historical moment, right?
Tim McInerney:
Right. And maybe you might be better poised to talk about this than me. The third moment I want to point out is on the eve of Ireland’s independence in 1916 to the text of the Proclamation of the Republic, which was, of course, distributed from the General Post Office during the massive rebellion that year. And if you read that text, it makes a specific mention of Ireland’s historical relationship with Europe.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah, it’s a really famous phrase, “Our gallant allies in Europe.”
Tim McInerney:
Right. And like there was actually a cultural dimension to this as well in the greater nationalist tradition. Lots of Irish nationalist had quite strong links with European cities that weren’t London, you know, at this time. They were trying to form an intellectual and political movement. Of course, that was outside the realms of imperial traditions or places like Paris and Zurich, which were international hubs for thought and innovation at the time, were really important for Irish nationalists. And then, of course, you know, Irish intellectuals in general, you can think of James Joyce, of course, who wrote Ulysses just, you know, one or two streets down from the College des Irelandais where Blackwell had stormed the Bastille.
Naomi O’Leary:
Wow. That’s a curious fact. I didn’t know that. Well, yeah, ok, if it’s the 1916 Rising, yeah, I can say something about it. So basically, in the context of the First World War, right, from Britain what that rebellion looked like mostly was betrayal and treason with Britain’s enemies. So the British authorities were you know, they saw the hand of the Kaiser in it all, you know. They kind of inflated the importance of Germany in the whole thing. And you can kind of, if you want to be coach psychologists, you can kind of maybe say like maybe it was easier to understand that concept of, you know, a recognizable enemy rather than what was then the second city of the British Empire, Dublin, rising up and, you know, being seized by a genuine homegrown rebel movement. It’s interesting in the records of or the recollections from rebels who took part, they note that after they were arrested — they were brought to Wales to be imprisoned — and when they arrived, you know, in Britain, they heard the locals saying that they were pro-Germans, the pro-German rebels. Yeah. Basically at the time, like Germany didn’t mind stirring up a bit of trouble for Britain. It was kind of like the various imperial powers had little games that they played where they would stir up trouble in the backyard of each other. The landings that we mean is basically some rebel sympathizers managed to procure some ancient Mausers from Germany. These are like really old guns and smuggle them into Howth in the Howth gun running. There was another attempt to run some guns that failed, like on the eve of the Easter Rising as well.
Tim McInerney:
Wow. So that’s Howth again. I mean, like, it’s funny to think about those guns being run to shore in the shadow of the castle of Gaisford-St Lawrence that we spoke to last week.
Naomi O’Leary:
Oh yeah. They would have gone right past the driveway.
Tim McInerney:
Wow. Wow. That’s amazing. So I suppose all in all, it has to be appreciated, really, that Ireland doesn’t really have like Ray Bassett was suggesting a similar cultural legacy as Britain in its relationship to Europe.
Naomi O’Leary:
No, it doesn’t.
Tim McInerney:
The whole narrative of British history, like I said earlier, is this idea of a scepter’d isle, you know, protecting itself from European invaders and whole narrative of Irish history is collusion, basically, with Britain’s enemies in order to self-preserve and I really think that our lack of, as it were, an imperial outlook in Ireland really undermines Ray Basset’s its notion that Ireland and Britain are essentially in the same boat when it comes to leaving the EU.
Naomi O’Leary:
This is my view of it, right. So essentially sitting around a table, on equal terms in Brussels with France and Germany and Spain, to Ireland, you know, that isn’t in any way a diminishment. In many ways, it’s actually the realisation of a dream, whereas the UK really struggles with that idea. You know, the idea of potentially being overruled by Spain, you know, in a scenario like that is clearly abhorrent to a group of people in Britain, which is obviously not insignificant. And they seem to refer back to the days when, you know, Britain was the power that bestrode the earth.
Tim McInerney:
So looking up things then from another perspective and keeping all that historical baggage in mind, what would it look like if Ireland left the EU?
Naomi O’Leary:
So I’m speaking in just practical terms, I asked John O’Brennan, who’s an EU politics professor in Maynooth, and he told me essentially it will be turning back the clock. Prior to the 1970s before, you know, the whole EU structure began to form, Ireland was really you know, it was arguable that it hadn’t really become independent because it was so economically dependent on the UK still. Joining the EEC and then the EU allowed it to develop into a new historical phase that it’s really starkly illustrated by the trade figures. So like in the 1970s, it was true that Ireland actually sold less to the whole of the rest of the what’s now the EU than it did to the UK. It was overwhelmingly exporting to the UK. And now I mean, what it’s selling to the rest of the EU completely overshadows its trade with the UK. So this is what O’Brennan told me about what it would mean, in practical terms, if Ireland joined Britain and left the EU.
John O’Brennan:
We would be back to a kind of underling to British power. It would mean being poorer because we’d be shut out of the single market. But the key thing is you would see all of those American multinationals flee overnight.
Naomi O’Leary:
So, Tim, given all this, what is your conclusion about Ireland and Europe?
Tim McInerney:
OK. I’m gonna be boring, Naomi, and say that it’s unique. Right, I mean, I think like Ray Bassett said Ireland definitely doesn’t have that same instinctual relationship with the central bloc as maybe Luxembourg does, right. That’s a closeness that you can only get with other actors in the relationship when they’re a short drive away, and Ireland just doesn’t have that. It still is emotionally and physically, quite far away. However, I would also definitely stress that Ireland’s relationship with Europe and the EU is simply nothing like that of the UK. And it’s really short sighted to assume that the two countries because they’re, you know, just beside each other should throw in their lot in terms of Brexit. So if anything, I’d say that Brexit has pushed the Irish much closer to the EU and, ironically, maybe it has helped to heal over those wounds inflicted by austerity, or at the very least distract from them. And, you know, that’s my point of view.
Naomi O’Leary:
Yeah, I agree with you on that. And I think that going forward, if things proceed as they are going now, Ireland will be growing much more close with the EU; that relationship has been brought closer together by the very fact of Brexit, by the very requirement that Irish officials work so closely with the EU, the rest of the EU 27, with the UK at the other side of the negotiating table. It’s a kind of, it’s an historical moment, if you ask me. I mean, there’s gonna be minefields ahead that we can’t really predict. There are going to be times when Ireland wants one thing and maybe Germany wants another thing. It’s the other thing is like public opinion itself these days is like a fraught, unpredictable business, you know, as everybody knows. But yeah, absolutely, Tim, Ireland is a completely different kettle of fish than the UK. And if you ask me if there is one way of inspiring a passionate pro-EU movement in Ireland is to say that we have to leave the EU because of Britain.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah, I mean, that’s for sure. Alright, so we’re out of time. There you go. That’s all we have time for today but I’m sure this is — no, I’m positive this is something that we’ll return to — so what are we tackling next time, Naomi?
Naomi O’Leary:
Okay, so we’re reporting on the diaspora. Again, it’s a Brexit-related topic.
Tim McInerney:
Surprise, surprise.
Naomi O’Leary:
Because, of course, it caused a huge rise in the number of people who are claiming Irish passports. Many of these applicants are descendants of Irish immigrants, so we’re going to be speaking to some of them about, you know, why they’re doing it and what is it like to claim your Irish identity as an adult.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah. And on that point, before we sign off, Naomi, we have a listener question.
Naomi O’Leary:
Oh, yes.
Tim McInerney:
Right. Yeah, we had to get around to this one because it’s actually so relevant to our next episode. So Daniel from Scotland wrote into us by email to ask whether Irish people are annoyed about all these new passport applicants from Britain after the Brexit vote. We might remind our listeners that many people with recent or semi recent Irish descent are given an automatic right to Irish citizenship. So over 51,000 UK residents applied for passports in the first quarter of 2017. And that represents a rise of 69 percent.
Naomi O’Leary:
Well, Daniel, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll try and do something different this week rather than sort of just give our own opinions on that. We’d like to open it up to the listeners, yeah.
Tim McInerney:
Yeah.
Naomi O’Leary:
So, everybody tell us what you think.
Tim McInerney:
We’re asking you exactly to answer Daniel’s question and we’ll see what the reaction is. What do you think of the policy of allowing citizenship to be claimed descent? Has this been changed at all by Brexit? We’d love to hear everything you have to say on the issue. You can get in touch with us as usual, via email at the irishpassport@gmail.com or of course, on Twitter at @PassportIrish.
Naomi O’Leary:
And we’re looking forward to hearing what you have to say.
Tim McInerney:
And please don’t forget to share and write the podcast if you like it to get the word out there, we really appreciate it.
Naomi O’Leary:
It actually helps so much. Yes, please do. And thanks so much to everybody who’s already done so. And thanks for being with us.