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One of the major critiques of British rule in Ireland by nationalists was the state of the economy.  Irish economic development, they alleged, had been repressed by its subjugation to British trade interests.  If there was one object lesson in indifferent, not to say inhumane, British management that nationalists could point to it was the Great Famine.

Conversely, and ipso facto, nationalists believed that Irish management of the economy would allow its potential to be fully realised; our native creativity would see entrepreneurship flourish and Ireland’s fertile lands would provide food for its people and for export.  Native management would see to the exploitation of natural resources on behalf of the people.  There was no good reason, nationalists argued, why Ireland could not be as prosperous as its nearby European neighbours, save for its colonial subjugation.

In order to offset generations of economic repression at imperial hands, nationalist intellectuals believed that after independence Ireland was entitled to a period of protectionism to allow its fledgling native industries to grow until they were ready to compete internationally.

For the first ten years of independence the Cumann na nGael Government maintained the free trade with Britain that was vital to Ireland’s main exports.  There were overwhelmingly food-based since the 1921 partition had shorn the new state of the industrial base in and around Belfast.  More than that, after the Famine, most of Ireland’s agriculture was pasture yielding dairy and beef, an activity light in employment with little added value in processing the basic produce.  The food and drink sector provided what little non-agricultural economic activity existed.  High levels of emigration provided economic opportunities abroad for those who could not find them at home.

The new Government imposed selective tariffs in certain manufacturing sectors, created the beginnings of a central bank in the Currency Commission, launched a major infrastructural project with the Shannon Hydro-Electric scheme and established a number of state agencies to undertake activities beyond the capacity of the private investors such as the Dairy Development Board, the Electricity Supply Board, and the Agricultural Credit Corporation.

A strong proponent of protectionism was Eamon de Valera, a surviving commander of the 1916 Rising, former Presidnet of the revolutionary republic and, in 1927 founder and leader of Fianna Fáil.  The party’s rank and file derived from those who had taken the republican side in the civil war and whose electoral base was the small farmer and urban worker.  De Valera did not see protectionism as a mere transition.  He took the economic nationalist approach much further in seeing protectionism as a permanent feature of national policy.  He was deeply committed to a vision of Irish nationalism that saw Ireland’s Christianity as divinely ordained and manifestly so in our history.

Based on this set of beliefs, de Valera framed social and economic policy around two key instruments, namely protectionism and accelerated land division.  The parceling out of land from the large estates to their farming tenants had been underway and managed by the Land Commission since 1881.  It had continued after independence but for de Valera its new purpose was now to be a key national objective, namely the settling of as many people on independent holdings that were in turn to be as self-sufficient as possible.  For de Valera, independent Ireland itself would replicate the virtues of the small farm on a national scale; self-reliant, based around the stem family, devotional, living the life, as he put it in a celebrated 1943 radio broadcast, that God intended.

De Valera’s vision of independent Ireland has been much mocked since but it had the virtue of being internally coherent.  He held that because of economies of scale Irish manufacturing could not compete with industrial behemoths like Britain, Germany and the United States.  He also knew that the price of protectionism was a loss in competitiveness, just as land division could not be as competitive or productive as larger holdings.  The economic cost of both would be accepted by Irish people because of the societal values thus made possible.  Exports from surplus food and small-scale decentralized manufacturing would be required only to the extent that Ireland needed imported commodities like oil, coal, steel and tea.

De Valera was far from alone in his belief that materialism and urban living were conditions for spiritual corruption.  It had its roots in the Enlightenment and European romantic nationalism.  The Judaeo-Christian tradition itself conflates frugality (read poverty) and virtue.  Indeed looking at Irish history some clerical observers were led to conclude that Ireland’s history of oppression and poverty was divinely ordained to keep the Irish spiritually pure and devotional.  One priest warned that Ireland should not so much fear Anglicization so much as Los Angelesation, for many the materialistic Mecca of western capitalism.

De Valera’s accession to power in 1932 gave him the platform to implement his ideas.  De Valera’s determination to reset Anglo-Irish relations helped precipitate protectionism.  Because of his refusal to continue compensation payments arising from the land acts, Britain imposed punitive tariffs on Irish agricultural exports in what became known as the ‘economic war’.  By the time this was sorted out in 1938, world war was in the offing.  When hostilities broke out in 1939, de Valera declared neutrality and the Irish economy suffered if not an actual embargo by the Allies (spurred by Churchill’s rage at Ireland’s position), then certainly a highly straitened regime of imports.  Ireland could feed itself but shortages of fuel, grains, tea and tobacco were to be acute during the war and in following years.

Surely, you may well suggest, this provided the perfect conditions for de Valera’s vision of Ireland – self-sufficient and aloof from the depredations of a materialistic world gone mad? It did not work out that way.  The planned acceleration of land division ran out of steam, much to de Valera’s deep frustration, and droves of Irish people went to the munitions factories of Britain searching for a steady income and a better life.  Emigrants sent vital money home, to the tune of about £100 million a year.  The Irish economy remained in desperately poor shape, completely dependent on the British market and even more pointedly on the dollar convertibility of British currency.

The isolation of World War II, the refusal of Irish people to embrace frugality and the realities of economic life both domestically and internationally put paid to de Valera’s vision.  However, it would take many years and the economic nadir of the 1950s to spur the evolution of an alternative economic approach.

So limited were the entry points for capital investment in Ireland that the injection of some $116m from the Marshall Plan between 1948 and 1951 merely boosted consumption and imports, leading to a balance of payments crisis and the abject deflation of the economy in 1952.  Emigration to Britain and the US soared during the bleak 1950s.  The State’s population declined to below three million.  Doubts began to creep in about whether the whole notion of independence had been a valid one.  Hand Ireland back to the British and apologise for the state we’ve left it in, quipped writer and former IRA man Brendan Behan.

A series of initiatives put in place the building blocks for economic development.  Irish education created a talented workforce. The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) was established in 1947.  By the early 1950s, European leaders were committed to trade liberalisation and that would lead to the EEC and European Free Trade Association.  For trade reasons alone if Britain was a part of these developments, Ireland had to be too.

De Valera finally retired from active politics and passed the torch to Seán Lemass, a man long determined to bring about the development of the Irish economy without any philosophical hankering after an Irish Ireland.  Along with the head of the Department of Finance, the pioneering, if very careful, official Ken Whitaker, Lemass launched the First Programme for Economic Expansion (1958-63), and reiterated it with the Second and Third Programmes covering the rest of the 1960s and early 1970s.

There is a debate about whether these programmes were more symbolic than real but they did capture a sense that a new Ireland beckoned if it embraced the possibilities of economic development as a virtue in and of itself, and if Ireland looked to engage in the outside world.  Lemass gave political and democratic authority to the pursuit of economic development.

Behind the language of the programmes lay a new direction for the Irish economy.  Given the failure of the indigenous non-agricultural sector to develop any reach beyond the tiny domestic market, Ireland would have to import investment to boost exports and growth.  The IDA was mandated to bring foreign manufacturing to Ireland. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was to become the engine for Irish economic development up to the present day.

Ireland was particularly well placed to attract newly mobile international capital.  It was English speaking and had a well-educated young workforce and elastic labour supply.  The US began running large deficits in the 1960s to finance the Vietnam War, adding to the availability of the dollar as the medium of global capital.  Petro-dollars boosted the supply of international mobile capital.  Once Ireland joined the European Economic Community in 1973, it had the distinct advantage for US firms of being inside one of the largest and largely closed markets in the world.  European funding (some €69 billion over 40 years) and the imposition of European health and safety standards would add to Ireland’s development as a modern economy.

It would not be an early home run though, and momentum built only slowly and falteringly in the 1960s and 1970s.  The oil price crisis in 1973-74 hit the Irish economy hard.  Expansionary fiscal policy helped, but only at eventual cost to the exchequer.  Thirty years after the budget deficit crisis of the early 1950s, Ireland was hit again with a budget deficit crisis and economic decline in the 1980s, with high unemployment and mass emigration.

By the late 1980s, however, the fiscal situation had stabilized, the Irish workforce was competitive, the impact of EU supported infrastructure was increasingly evident, the IDA had had major success in attracting FDI mainly from the US, and the world economy was taking off thanks to globalization and deregulation.

The IDA used access provided to US boardrooms through Irish American connections to sell Ireland; sealing the deal was down to hard bargaining in a highly competitive market.   The IDA certainly relied on the Government’s 12% tax regime, access to the European market and the quality of the Irish workforce too.  But the IDA also consistently adapted to changes, rolling FDI through cycles of development from ‘screw driver stuff’ to software, high tech, pharmaceuticals and services.

The IDA’s success was in fact transformative.  Irish incomes began to rise and unemployment to fall.  By the early 1990s, Irish growth rates were taking off.  By the early 2000s Ireland had become the Celtic Tiger, boasting sustained double-digit growth.  Involuntary emigration, the curse of Irish families since the Great Famine, came to an end.

However, all was not well by the mid-point of the first decade of the new millennium.  Increasingly economic growth was switching from being export-led to being demand driven.  Irish competitiveness was slipping because of the boom’s impact on costs and expectations.  The construction sector was burgeoning beyond a normal share of the economy.  Personal debt was accelerating.  House prices were booming, fueled by cheap and available Euros.

The creation of the Euro – in non-physical form January 1999 and as legal tender in January 2002 – put this process into overdrive by boosting Irish credit.  As Eurozone capital looked for better returns in an era of low interest rates, Irish banks became willing recipients, offering good returns for investments.  In many ways this was how the Eurozone was supposed to work; moving capital from areas of low marginal rates of return to areas of high return.  However, the investors and regulators did not look too closely on the use this money was put to – retail banking, personal credit and, increasingly, mortgages.  The flood of Euro capital into Ireland put the property market into overdrive.

After a second thirty-year interlude, Ireland was faced with a budget crisis in 2008 as US banking troubles sent a tsunami of financial collapse around the globe.  With property prices plummeting, Irish banks saw vital equity disappear.  Without taxpayer’s money, they were insolvent.  However, governments across Europe now found that the Eurozone was not an aggregated risk as investors quickly disaggregated the national bond markets.  Irish bond rates became unsustainable and Ireland was obliged to apply for an EU/IMF bailout.

How did Ireland cope with this unprecedented crisis?  By any measure Ireland has done remarkably well.  It grappled with the budgetary crisis by slashing expenditure, public sector salaries and increasing taxes.  A series of austerity budgets applied painful but fiscally effective medicine between 2008 and 2014.  It pumped €64 billion into the banking sector and restored two pillar banks to bring the sector more into line with the economy so that banks could serve the economy rather than the other way around.  It created a vehicle for non-performing property investments in NAMA, theNational Assets Management Agency. Ireland exited the bailout ahead of schedule.  Meanwhile, the IDA aggressively pursued foreign direct investment, hitting a record in 2013.  Irish economic growth is now one of the best in the Eurozone, despite a generally depressed global economy.

We should not forget the cutbacks in services, the high unemployment, the loss of wealth and pensions, the negative equity in the property sector – all salutary lessons about the dangers of willfully blind credit and demand-led growth.  However Ireland had successfully faced down the gravest financial challenge it had encountered since independence.

Even if we paid a high price for the Celtic Tiger years, I don’t think its possible to look back on them without some fond memories and positive impressions.  They were great years of confidence and optimism.  They coincided with the Northern Ireland peace process and the resolution of deep-rooted antagonisms between Ireland and Britain.  Anglo-Irish relations blossomed.   Young entrepreneurs flourished in those heady days, creating an invaluable reservoir of expertise that will stand to us.  ‘Riverdance’ enthralled us, and the world, with its brio and energy, its sensuality a long awaited riposte to post-Famine strictures.  Dublin flourished with new restaurants and culture, with towns across Ireland soon following.  Above all, we had achieved full employment and ended enforced emigration.  Now we’re getting back on our feet economically and financially, but this time with greater deliberation and maturity.

I hope this series of blogs has been helpful and that it encourages you to look at Ireland’s story more closely in the wealth of historical publications, literature and material available online.  The study of our history rewards the reader well, enriching an understanding and appreciation not just of the centennial commemorations ahead but also of Ireland today and how we got to be who we are.

Eamonn McKee

Ireland by the end of the 19th century was than just a Catholic strong farming class and a deeply embedded Catholic Church. There were small farmers and large ones too; there were the estates of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and their hybrid British Irish families straddling two worlds; there were members of the Protestant elite fascinated by the ancient native lore and archaeology around them, and therefore part of a general European intellectual fashion that discovered (or created) Celtic, Norse and Anglo-Saxon antecedents; Unionists, Church of Ireland and Presbyterian, were concentrated around industrialised Belfast and its rural hinterland in Antrim, Down and Armagh.  

Dublin, second city of the British Empire, had lost some of its Georgian glamour when the Irish parliament was abrogated with the Act of Union in 1801 (obliging Irish members of parliament to travel to Westminster when it was in session) but it retained its bustle and intimacy.  The British crown was represented by the Lord Lieutenant whose viceregal court was based at Dublin Castle, a focal point for executive power and for the aristocracy’s social calendar.  Many of the strands of Irish and British Irish hybrids mixed in the capital city and gave a rich texture to its daily life: lords and ladies, aristocracy and peasants, protestant professionals and the rising Catholic middleclass, a vibrant Jewish community, colourful Irish Regiments in the British Army, Anglo-Irish and Irish writers (Gregory, Yeats, Synge, O’Casey) and artists of many cultural hews (Orpen, Henry, Clarke, Jellet, Sheppard, Hone).  Politically and artistically, Ireland was in ferment as it neared the end of the century.

If the strong farmers were the bedrock of nationalist Ireland in the closing decades of the 19th century, its leadership came from the emerging Catholic middleclass.  While academically minded members of the Protestant Ascendancy had done the pioneering research on ancient Irish society and culture, it was this Catholic elite, aided certainly by nationalist-minded Protestants, that would adopt that knowledge for their own ends and use it as a reservoir from which to draw strength in many forms; as nationalist imagery, as a source for literary inspiration, as native language for a renewed nation, above all as a justification for the political independence that they sought.  In short, a new identity was being actively created to put a face on the nationalist Ireland emerging from the social and economic forces at work since the Famine.  And it was this energy that continued to strain Ireland’s relationship within the Empire in a way not evident in either Wales or Scotland.

The struggle for electoral reform (Catholic Emancipation) and then home rule (overturning the Act of Union) in the first half of the 19^th century was led by Daniel O’Connell, a democratic agitator of European significance.  As the Great Famine had taken hold, one of his last political acts was to plead in the House of Commons for relief for the starving Irish in a voice sadly diminished by age and illness.

Charles Stewart Parnell, a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy (though having an American mother), took up the reins of the political struggle in the second half of 19^th century.  His aloof charisma, strategic sense and organizational skills as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party forged a new and ruthless political discipline that revolutionized the conduct of politics on the floor of the House of Commons at Westminster.  Parnell combined parliamentary action, the agitation for land reform led by Michael Davitt, and the tacit support of the physical force movement under the secret Irish Republic Brotherhood, also known as the Fenians.  Alas Parnell would not win Home Rule, despite the support of the Liberal Party under Prime Minister Gladstone who tabled the First Home Bill in 1886.  Parnell’s fall from grace because of his love affair with Kitty O’Shea and his death shortly thereafter in 1891 would rend Irish politics and society apart for a generation.

Rebuilding the constitutional nationalist movement in the wake of Parnell’s death was the great achievement of John Redmond who brought legislation granting Irish home rule to passage but not enactment; enactment was postponed in 1912 for two years and was then overtaken by the outbreak of World War I. Why had the obstacles to Home Rule proven so obdurate?

Most native Irish were nationalists in the broadest sense of the term, happy to lend their support to the political campaign for what was genteelly called ‘Home Rule’.  Home Rule as a term conveyed the notion that it was only reasonable and efficient to have a local say in one’s internal governance, that it was not a threat to the integrity of the British Empire and that it did not pose any revolutionary threat to the political or social order.

The gentility of the term could not however disguise its implications.  For the loyal Unionists in Ireland – the very instrument of British control – Home Rule would mean becoming a political minority to the Catholic majority and set the clock ticking on the loss of their social and economic supremacy.

The British could see this too but far more worryingly granting Home Rule to Ireland presented a potential inspiration to every society ruled by its Empire.  For just as surely as the overseas Empire had begun in Ireland, its ruin would be spelled by Irish self-determination and its salutary example around the world.

For there was an abiding contradiction at the heart of the British Empire and its flattering notion that it was the bringer of progress to less developed societies and far corners of the world; its message was that you may enjoy social and economic progress but you can have neither democracy nor autonomy.  This contradiction between being free but not free enough to leave the Empire bedeviled Anglo-Irish relations, with tragic consequences.

The Conservative Party in Britain forged an alliance with Unionists in Ireland to oppose Home Rule as a mortal danger to the Empire.  There was political opportunism here too in that Home Rule had been an objective of the Liberal Party since Gladstone had adopted it in the 1880s.  What became known as “playing the Orange card” – a reference to Willian of Orange, the 17th century hero of Irish unionists – combined then a number of Conservative Party ambitions.

The Conservative Party openly flirted with the notion of extra-parliamentary pressure and even insinuated that opposition to Home Rule justified the use of force.  Unionists in Ireland would take matters into their own hands to form the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in January 1913, a part-time military outfit that today seems distinctly odd: private citizens organized into an army with uniforms and eventually weapons, thanks to the successful gun-running in April 1914 through the small port of Larne, just north of Belfast.  Irish nationalists thought that this was a great idea and promptly formed the Irish Volunteers, organizing its own gun-running through Howth harbor, just north of Dublin.

These were, to be sure ominous developments. Ireland shared in the widespread European enthusiasm for militarism, a kind of boyish eagerness that set the scene for the romantic welcome given the outbreak of war in 1914.  Throughout Europe, the war was seen as an occasion for the assertion of male virtues and martial values like courage, glory, sacrifice and love of one’s country.

In Ireland both unionist and nationalist volunteers paraded openly, both illegally imported arms, and both had diametrically opposed objectives of preserving the Union and breaking it.  All this parading and weapons training was done cheerfully assuming that it was to be used as leverage against the British and little thought seemed to be given to the possibility that the UVF and Irish Volunteers might actually face off in a dreadful confrontation pitting the million-odd Unionists against the native Catholic nationalists.   Had that happened, it would have most assuredly been a bloody, cruel and sectarian episode.

Predicting an armed clash between them would have been logical enough had not the outbreak of world war intervened.  The UVF saw the war in Europe as a chance to prove their loyalty.  The sacrifice of the Ulster Division at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 would become an iconic rallying point for unionism.

For Irish nationalists, it was a more complicated decision:  Fight for ‘Little Belgium’ and the rights of all small nations; or stay at home and keep your powder dry for an assertion in arms against Britain if required.  The question split the nationalist movement.  The majority National Volunteers heeded Redmond’s advice and went to war believing that it was a form of down payment on independence.  The Irish Volunteers however stayed at home, its ranks filled with men more inclined to fight for Ireland if it came to that.

For now, the assumption shared my most people in Ireland of whatever political hue or opinion was that the Irish question would only be addressed once the war was concluded. Only then would the two great questions raised by the momentum toward some form of Irish autonomy be addressed, namely the precise relationship between Ireland and the Empire and the relationship between Irish nationalism and Irish unionism.

Reflecting on19th century Ireland, it is striking how political were the course of events.  Though the Fenians had given insurrection one more chance in 1867, it was a paltry and even farcical affair.  Between the rebellion of 1798 and 1916 nationalist energies had focused on parliamentary politics to achieve its aims.  Certainly there were agrarian ‘outrages’ associated with the campaign for land reform that ran in parallel with Parnell’s campaign for home rule but neither it nor the Fenians ever amounted to a serious security threat to the Union.

The Irish Parliamentary Party had held the field of Irish nationalism for more than thirty years and, despite the frustrations of British resistance, had managed to put Home Rule on the statute books, if not enacted, by 1912.  The suspension for two years brought the Party under Redmond tantalizingly close to its goal, only for the outbreak of European war to postpone it once more.  All the Party had to do was to hang on until the end of the war to implement the Home Rule Act.  And yet by 1918 the Irish Parliamentary Party had ceased to exist as a political force.  How had it been so dramatically displaced?  We’ll look at that inIreland in Five Easy Pieces III.

Eamonn McKee

On the brink of Christmas, peace building in Northern Ireland received a major boost with agreement between the parties on how to resolve outstanding issues on the budget, parades and dealing with the past. Minister Flanagan and his team worked hard with the parties and their British counterparts to bring this about.

As the Minister said, “On one of the darkest days in the bleak mid-winter we have forged a broad agreement that will undoubtedly give rise to brighter days in Belfast and throughout Northern Ireland and indeed throughout the island of Ireland.”

After twenty-six hours of continuous negotiations, the Irish Times summarized the deal thus:

STORMONT HOUSE AGREEMENT

Key proposals include:

• The creation of a Historical Investigations Unit to inquire into killings during the Troubles;
• A commission to enable people to privately learn how their loved ones were killed;
• The creation of an oral history archive where experiences of the conflict could be shared;
• A commission to report on flags within 18 months of being established;
• Devolving responsibility for parades from the Parades Commission to the Northern Assembly;
• Slimming the size of the Northern Assembly from 108 to 90 members by the time of the 2021 Assembly elections;
• Reducing the number of Executive departments from 12 to 9 by the time of the 2016 Assembly elections;
• The potential to create a formal opposition at Stormont.

This deal builds on a succession of negotiations and benchmark agreements, for a peace process is a living system of adjustments as conflict and mistrust is gradually replaced by concord and cooperation. The origins of this very dynamic diplomacy can be traced back to the early 1980s. The private story is being revealed thanks to the release of British and Irish archives under the thirty-year rule. Arguably it begins with the relationship between Taoiseach Charlie Haughey and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

What the record shows of their relationship is explored here; http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/love-hate-the-haughey-thatcher-relationship-revisited-1.2047899#.VJs1hfRCmqI.twitter …

This was of course about more than personalities. It was in effect a strategic shift whereby Dublin and London began, tenuously but necessarily, to find common ground in trying to solve the conflict in Northern Ireland. President Reagan, leveraging his own relationship with PM Thatcher, gave an important impetus to the negotiations in nudging her forward. After a decade of violence, Britain and Ireland now embarked on more or less continuous negotiations that led to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, the ceasefires in 1994, the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and each successive agreement, down to the Christmas deal this year.

The first great diplomatic breakthrough was the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, negotiated by Taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald, his government and senior officials from the Departments of the Taoiseach and Foreign Affairs. It was a major achievement: In forging a structured and agenda-driven relationship between London and Dublin which began to tackle many of the underlying causes of the conflict, the AIA laid the essential groundwork for the peace process and the1998 Good Friday Agreement. The archival material from both Irish and British sources being released under the thirty-year rule makes for fascinating reading; examples of the coverage are here:

http://www.irishtimes.com/state-papers-fitzgerald-criticised-thatcher-s-rejection-of-new-ireland-forum-report-1.2042568#.VKGQm1Wl4ac.twitter …

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/anglo-irish-agreement-a-triumph-of-persistence-and-backdoor-diplomacy-1.2043042#.VKNMruwFouA.twitter …

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/30/national-archives-thatcher-vetoes-anglo-irish-agreement

For more coverage, go the ‘State Papers’ section of the Irish Times here; http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/state-papers

Of course the roots of the conflict go back deep into British and Irish history. Looking back just one hundred years, against the backdrop of the Home Rule Act, the European war offered for unionists an opportunity to prove they were vital to Britain just as nationalists saw it as an opportunity to prove that they deserved a state of their own. There was too a more widespread notion abroad, tragically innocent, that the European war would be a short, even romantic opportunity for beleaguered manhood, displaced by machines and sensing the assertion of women to rights and equality, to reassert martial prowess. Ironically, the war would prove the destructive capacity of machines to kill vast numbers of even the most heroic of men while women were called upon to do man’s work at home, boosting their confidence and their claims.

These developments lay in the future as soldiers settled down for their first Christmas in the trenches. That Christmas one hundred years ago saw the famous truce between troops in the British and German armies facing each other along the Western Front. To mark its anniversary, former President of Ireland Mary McAleese gave a lecture at Iveagh House, the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Against the background of her own pioneering peace building efforts as President, she explores the truce’s meaning, particularly for Irishmen serving with the British Army, and its implications for peace building in Ireland.

You can read her speech, thoughtful and significant, here; http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/mary-mcaleese-the-christmas-truce-1.2048413#.VJ0ydmPanac.twitter …

For Ireland, expectations that the war would be a proving ground for both traditions were doubly trumped; by a war far removed from heroic expectations, one that became in fact a gross caesura with all that had gone before; and by the Easter Rising in 1916.

Thanks to the 2014 Christmas Deal, the Northern Ireland peace process moves forward. As we look back one hundred years, and thirty years and now with this latest achievement, we can be reassured that our complex dialogue with our shared past continues to be a positive one for the present and the future as we encounter the coming anniversaries and commemorations.

On a more festive note, and perhaps because I am not a big New Year reveler, I found traditional Irish wariness about the New Year appealing. I enjoyed this charming piece from the Irish Times on Irish New Year traditions here; http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/irish-new-year-s-day-traditions-looking-to-2015-in-the-shadow-of-the-past-1.2051343#.VKOZvTdDycs.twitter

Every best wish to you and yours for 2015.

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador Tel Aviv

The Israel Ireland Friendship League hosted its annual Hannukkah lighting yesterday evening in the Shamrock Bar, Netanyah. Thanks to the Chairman of the League, the indefatigable Malcolm Gafson, for organizing the event. It’s great to meet our Irish Jewish community and hear their stories, often of childhood in Dublin and making Aliya here and raising their families.

In my remarks, I recalled that Hannukkah’s roots lie in the great victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian-Greek army that had destroyed the Temple and tried to wipe out Judaism. And that it was the recovery of this martial prowess after two thousand years by the Jewish Legion under Longfordman Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson during WWI that laid a critical foundation stone for the creation of modern Israel.

In the audience last night was the daughter of Michael Flanagan, an Irishman in the British Army who “donated” a clutch of British tanks to the Haganah at the end of WWII, thus establishing the IDF’s first armoured unit.

Another story I shared came courtesy of Murray Greenfield who I met at the recent Jerusalem Post Conference: An Irishman, Hugh McDonald, left his legal studies at Harvard to volunteer on the vessel Hatikva in 1947, part of a clandestine fleet determined to break the British blockade and deliver Shoah survivors to Palestine. Hugh painted a Shamrock under the Magen David on one of Hatikva’s funnels. (Murray, with Joseph M. Hochstein, wrote the history of this endeavor in The Jews’ Secret Fleet, Gefen Publishing House.)

Maerton Davis and his wife Beth, stalwarts too of the Friendship League, kindly gave me a monograph of the story of his family (originally Davidowitsch) and that of the Kisners, from their Shtetl in Latvia to Dublin. This is a great way to preserve oral family histories. (From Dankere to Dublin by Beatrice Sofaer-Bennett.)

Other stories have inevitably been lost but we can recover many. If you are aware of any, please let me know.

Coming as a diplomat to Israel, I was promised an interesting time. As the year winds down for us, I can look back on a talks’ process, its climax and collapse, a war and the calling of a general election. It will be fascinating to observe this election, even now as the parties here morph and evolve before our eyes, quite a contrast to the fixity of parties in Ireland since our own independence.

Back in Ireland, we continue to make economic progress, after many years of tough decisions and impositions on our public. In the end, early exits from the bailout and the confirmation of our financial reputation are invaluable: in the short run by lowering our bond yields and helping to ease the burden of servicing the national debt; and in the longer run by encouraging economic confidence and inward investment. Growth rates in Ireland are ahead of the Eurozone average, domestic demand has ticked up but real progress will depend greatly on renewed growth and demand in Europe.

Finally, I want to say goodbye to the Deputy Head of Mission and great colleague Julian Clare and his wife Siobhan. They arrived with Mary and me and they have been a pleasure to work with and to get to know over the past year and a half. They and their lovely family of three daughters are heading back to Ireland thanks to Julian’s promotion. Thanks for everything and the very best of luck.

I am heading back to Ireland myself to spend Christmas there with my family. Tel Aviv really doesn’t do Christmas so I expect to be hit by a Yuletide avalanche on arrival in Dublin of lights, decorations and carol singing, not to mention the odd hot toddy to ward off the cold. We in Ireland take our Christmas fun and festivities very seriously!

Happy Hannukkah, merry Christmas and have a great New Year.

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador

Tel Aviv

PS Our new website is being rolled and while it is not fully complete yet, you can follow my twitter account there, including for example a photo of the shamrock on the Hatikva, courtesy of Murray. Website here https://www.dfa.ie/irish-embassy/israel

It was great to launch our Irish Film Week to such a well attended opening reception and I understand that attendances were strong during the week.  I want to thank Cinematheque for their outstanding support.  It is a great outfit and a vital voice for cinema in Israel as a medium for art and insight.  We are looking forward to working with them for next year’s Irish film week.  Culture is one of the great bridges between Ireland and Israel and we at the Embassy are keen to develop it.

I attended two briefings this week.  The first was given by Bob Turner, Operations Director for UNRWA in Gaza.  He painted a grim picture of the situation there, with serious problems with water supplies and electricity (only available eight hours on, eight hours off).  It is particularly tough for the 17,000 families who lost their homes.  There has been some improvement on the movement of goods but nothing near the scale required to visibly improve matters.  To add to their woes, the recent rains have led to serious flooding in parts.  It was International Children’s Day on 21^st November and UNRWA reminded us that children comprise half the population of Gaza.

The second was the annual diplomatic briefing by Peace Now, particularly its Settlement Watch experts. In its description of the multifaceted and continuous nature of settlements in the West Bank, it underscored why Ireland, the EU and the US are alarmed at the process and the obstacle it presents to the MEPP.  For a very good exposition of our position on the current situation regarding both the MEPP and the situation in Gaza, I would highly recommend Minister Flanagan’s speech to the Seanad here http://t.co/Za8NP4cC4y

I would also recommend that you read the Minister’s joint Op Ed with his Finnish counterpart Minister Erkki Tuomioja on the need to inject energy into the MEPP and for the EU to prioritize it, here http://t.co/z0VsGph7VM .  As they argue, “Putting an end to the conflict would bring huge benefits for Israelis and Palestinians and have a transformative effect on the entire region. It would open the way to the normalisation of relations between the Arab states and Israel, as envisaged in the Arab Peace Initiative. It would remove the excuse many use to stoke other conflicts in the wider Middle East and help bring more stability to a troubled region.”

In terms of the Northern Ireland Peace Process, the talks to resolve the impasse over some key issues continue.  Minister Flanagan gave his assessment in an interview with the Irish Times here http://t.co/bpAJMwGLNj

Despite the persistence of conflict, global casualties generated by wars are at an historic low, and have been for some time.  We are, counter-intuitively, living through an era of peace. This is in stark contrast to the twentieth century which not only saw two world wars but tens of millions die as a result of ideological movements led by evil men, notably in Germany, Russia and China.

As with other instances of mass murder, sometimes the magnitude of the Shoah can overwhelm human comprehension and when it does stories can help grasp the horror.  Yad Vashem (www.yadvashem.org) regularly publish ‘untold stories’ such as this one from Duniłowicze, Poland (today Dunilavichy , Belarus ).  A brief history of the Jewish presence in the town concludes, “between November 21 and 23, 1942 the ghetto was liquidated. The majority of its inmates were shot. Those who had hidden in bunkers were killed by hand grenades, while others were burned to death in houses in the ghetto. At that time a total of 812 (or, according to another source, 979) Jews from Duniłowicze were murdered.”

There has been much comment and discussion in Ireland on our relationship with World War I which actually demonstrates that we are coming to terms with its complicated legacy for us.  Many of the Irish men who enrolled in the British Army did so at the urging of national leader John Redmond.  However, the 1916 Rising caused a paradigm shift in the Irish nationalist narrative which rendered, in the perspective of the time, their sacrifice irrelevant, even embarrassing.  The National Library of Ireland has opened an exhibition exploring how individual Irish people responded to World War I.  By looking at these personal stories, the exhibition captures the complexity of the relationship between Ireland and the war.  Some details here http://t.co/yDfciT0e5z

On a similar theme, and if you are interested in modern Irish history, I reviewed Ronan Fanning’s Fatal Path, British Government and Irish Revolution 1910-1922 on my blog here http://t.co/OVN1iYZuVe

Whether you are part of the great narrative of the Irish Diaspora and have left home, or have made aliya and come home, you might enjoy this short piece in the Financial Times on an Irish émigré’s return to Dublin, where he found a place that was both familiar and changed, http://t.co/aDKGd9Rc02 .

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador, Tel Aviv

“I condemn the horrific attack on the Har Nof synagogue in Jerusalem and express deepest sympathies to the Israeli victims” said the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Charlie Flanagan, in response to the attack earlier this week.  He added, “I call on all sides to avoid provocations in response to these brutal murders and to act with responsibility and restraint.”

Murder in a synagogue is both shocking and saddening.  Our hearts go out to the victims and their families.  Indeed, as headline succeeds headline about violent incidents that have left dead and injured in their wake, we must think always of all of the victims of violence and their relatives whose lives are forever blighted by loss and grief.  They are wounded just as society is by violence and this indeed must act as a spur to renew efforts to achieve peace and set out earnestly on the long road to reconciliation and the two state solution.  As Minister Flanagan said, “violence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank shows that political failure will leave a vacuum which militant voices will fill.”

How to make political progress on the MEPP was considered at a meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council on Monday.  The EU Foreign Ministers called “on political leaders from all sides to work together through visible actions to de-escalate the situation” and they affirmed the EU has a “strategic interest to see an end to the conflict and is willing to play a major role and actively contribute to a negotiated solution of all final status issues.” Their conclusions cover all the key issues, from settlements to the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, and it is well worth a read here http://t.co/t6dcnLQKJ5

In Northern Ireland, the talks to resolve the impasse on such issues as parades, dealing with the past and the budget are continuing, with the pace of talks picking up.  A good BBC News snapshot is here http://t.co/Bd9AJzP2kY

Ireland continues to improve its debt situation with early repayment of IMF loans. According to the Irish Times: “Ireland plans to repay approximately €18.3 billion of IMF loans ahead of schedule. It is believed the Government is likely to follow the first repayment with a bond issue in January with a view to repaying a further €9 billion-€10 billion of the IMF debt early next year.”  Full report here http://t.co/QTEACzA8sk

The publication of documents in Irish foreign policy is always a major event for academics and foreign policy aficionados.  Volume X covering 1948-51 was published this week and was launched at Iveagh House.  According to the publisher, the Royal Irish Academy (www.ria.ie ):  “It covers Ireland’s role as a founder member of the Council of Europe in 1949 and the state’s response to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950 – the origins of today’s EU. It details Ireland’s refusal to join NATO. The Korean War (1950-53) forms a large component of the volume which sees Ireland’s foreign relations take a wider perspective and its network of overseas missions grow.”

“A century after the start of World War I and 70 years since D Day, over 2,000 Jewish former servicemen marched through London on Sunday, as they have done almost without fail for more than eight decades.” So starts a Times of Israel report that is worth a read because the contribution of Jews as fighters in both world wars is sometimes forgotten or occluded by the Shoah http://t.co/xgyDrHvMhP

Speaking of great cities, there is a wonderful New York Times video and related article on 36 hours in Dublin.  If you haven’t been there in a while, or ever, it might well encourage you to book a flight soon http://t.co/3s8wqvoM5E

Did you know that a rebel from Cork was the first to use the term United States of America, at least according to the earliest record in a letter from 1776? http://t.co/cDJTEc9ERD

Finally, I tweeted Yeats’ famous lines: “Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart./ O when may it suffice?” In his iconography, the stone reoccurs, sometimes untroubled in the living stream or here as an emblem of the petrifying effects of conflict and violence on human sentiment.  It is both a warning and an apt plea for our times.

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador

Tel Aviv

Irish economic growth is looking robust and its recovery appears to be broad based with growth this year estimated at 4.6% and forecast at 3.6% next year. This is all the more impressive given that growth in the EU, our major trading partner, is sluggish and forecasts for next year at 1.2% are retreating http://t.co/5tfYdcKWnl In Ireland, unemployment has now fallen to 11% and industrial production is up. Revenues are also buoyant, greatly helping the exchequer. On top of this, the Government successfully borrowed €3.75 billion in international markets at below 2.5%, allowing us to accelerate our early payback of more expensive IMF loans, easing repayments and ultimately our debt-to-GDP ratio, the critical measure of solvency http://t.co/IYMGVDXVYE

The engine of much of Irish economic growth has been the IDA, doing a tremendous job since the 1960s in promoting Ireland as a location for Foreign Direct Investment. The IDA has helped transform Ireland. This has held true even during the challenges of recent years, thanks to its constant evolution toward commercial frontiers: as IDA CEO Martin Shanahan tells us “since 2010, over 100 high growth global companies have set up in Ireland with the support of IDA.”

In the latest development, four hundred new jobs for Cork, Dublin and Galway from 8 North American and European based high-growth companies, spread across software development, telecoms, internet, digital and social media. As the Taoiseach Enda Kenny TD said: “I told the Dublin Web Summit that Ireland is one of the most exciting places in the world to build the enterprises of tomorrow and I’m delighted to welcome eight exciting and vibrant companies to Ireland to do just that. More information here http://t.co/jof58B6EUy

The Taoiseach was referring to the big event in Dublin this week which welcomed over 20,000 guests. The Dublin Web Summit ranks as one of the world’s leading gathering of high-tech innovators and venture capitalists. This link sets the scene http://t.co/Ifotbuiotx   The spin-offs are many, including hundreds of millions of euros worth of advertising, the use of 97 venues across the city and a huge boost to local tourism. The Irish Times reported that “Companies that have opened offices in Ireland, directly as a result of the Web Summit, include Smartling, Qualtrics, Wonga, Quantcast and Nordeus.” For news of the Summit check out its blog here http://blog.websummit.net/

One of the difficulties for Ireland’s SME sector in recent years has been access to finance, fallout from the financial crisis and the self-inflicted plight of our banking sector. It is a very welcome development then that a new fund of €800 million is being made available to SMEs under the Government’s new Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI). The SBCI is a new company, initially financed by the German Promotional Bank KfW, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the directed portfolio of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF). The involvement of KfW follows directly from discussion between the Taoiseach and Chancellor Merkel following Ireland’s successful exit from the EU/IMF Programme on finding ways to reinforce Ireland’s economic recovery. Report on the launch of the SBCI here http://t.co/9Es8vL4IVx   and the Irish Times’ editorial comment on this is here http://t.co/1owuESzsHd

We were reminded of the origins of our financial crisis by the publication this week of the ECB’s letter to the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, in November 2010. Text of the letter, which pretty much insisted that Ireland apply for a bailout if the EBC was to continue emergency funding of the Irish banks, is here courtesy of the Irish Times http://t.co/2UhPKAqsO8 The letter is important confirmation of what was generally known or at least accepted but of course if it only part of a much bigger story, critical factors in which included the bank guarantee and the disaggregation of euro bond risk which made Irish borrowing punitive and eventually unsustainable.

On the current Northern Ireland talks, Minister Flanagan and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Teresa Villiers met the parties in round table discussions. The engagement was positive and the Minister said that “following these meetings, both Governments will be in a good position to assess the scope for possible agreement.” Both he and Secretary of State Villiers are due to report back to the Taoiseach and Prime Minister Cameron respectively on the talks by 28 November. Full statement here https://t.co/uPaLP7olqh

Irish emigration has been a feature of our recent history, particularly since the Great Famine. Indeed the combination of the Famine and sustained emigration has meant that Ireland has not yet recovered demographically to the pre-Famine level of population of 8 million. Given the links between population density and socio-economic development, what Ireland would have looked like without the Famine is the great “what if” of modern Irish history. One important aspect of emigration was the level of remittances sent back home, up to £100 million a year in the 1940s and 1950s – very helpful sums for those in Ireland during what were very bleak years economically. It continues to this day: Ireland’s Diaspora remitted some €9.6 billion ($12 bn) to Ireland since 1990; some reflections on this here in an Irish Times Op Ed http://t.co/yhzEcIQkSI

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador Tel Aviv

Rain clouds split open like rice-bags

(from A Robin in Autumn/Chatting at Dawn by Paul Durcan, in The Art of Life)* 

Nine Italian Banks failed the European Central Bank’s stress tests. What relevance to Ireland?  Irish banks were not mentioned in the extensive international coverage because they passed the tests, with the exception of one bank (weighed down by a large portfolio of tracker mortgages) that failed one of the tests; Permanent TSB has been making provision to rectify this.  That our main ‘pillar banks’ – the Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank – passed these tests demonstrates how far we have progressed from the banking and property crises that began to unfold in 2008.  Though singularly not responsible for these crises, the Irish taxpayer has shouldered the burden of bailing out the banks with a capital injection of €64bn.  It’s gratifying to see that investment enabling the banks to pass these critical tests. The Minister for Finance’s welcome response is reported here http://t.co/uxrPay7PKe

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan wrote an Op Ed in the Irish Times on the importance of the current talks in Northern Ireland http://t.co/77btCHuF6m   The talks have been joined by Secretary of State Kerry’s personal representative Senator Gary Hart.  The mood, noted Minister Flanagan in a statement, has been positive so far https://t.co/YgYtipVDF0

On the peace process here the Minister expressed his deep concern about the settlement announcements in East Jerusalem http://t.co/FgA5BqSCbU  Minister Flanagan urged “the Israeli Government to reverse this decision and to work with the international community in seeking to revive substantive negotiations aimed at achieving the two-State solution which offers the only realistic prospect for peace between Israeli and Palestinian people.” 

One of the great themes in the Middle East is the origin of the peoples that have come and gone over the ages. Developments in the study of ancient genetics has revolutionised our understanding of this field.  This link http://t.co/nOYnXf1huh is to a great story from the New York Times of the contribution that University College Dublin is making to our understanding of the origins of man, particularly the origins of Europeans.  The archaeologists and genetic specialists at UCD, led by Prof. Ron Pinhasi, are transecting a site in the Great Hungarian Plain going back over 7,000 years.  The story emerging is that of an original dark skinned, blue-eyed hunter-gather people,  augmented then by an ancient farming people from the Middle East and then, surprisingly, about 4,000 years ago (the Bronze Age) by a third genetic contribution from northern Eurasia.

Again on the technology front, a young Irish person we can take great pride in is nine year old Lauren Boyle, named as the EU’s Digital Girl of the Year:http://t.co/kcVR8N8EiO.  Her company www.coolkidsstudio.com   mentors young people on computer coding and, along the way, on life lessons too.

At the other end of life’s span, Fr PJ McGlinchey is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Awards by President Higgins.  I was honoured to meet Fr McGlinchey when I served in Korea.  He has made an incalculable contribution to the life of the people of Jeju Island since he arrived there in 1954.  The work of the Irish Columban Order, Fathers and Sisters, in Korea is really an untold story of quiet heroism and compassion  http://t.co/AYHKN7XA1z

In keeping with the decade of commemorations and the focus on the birth of the Irish state, I tweeted a photo from the National Library of Ireland of an admission card for the London funeral procession of Terence MacSwiney.  MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork at the time, died on hunger strike in October 1920 while interned in Brixton Prison.  A long time nationalist activist and writer, MacSwiney was protesting his internment at the hands of a military court though of course his protest was part of the struggle for independence.  The war of independence was at its height in 1920.  While his hunger strike garnered world-wide attention, the British Government would not budge and MacSwiney died on day 74 of his strike after several attempts at force feeding.  His legacy lives on in his contribution to Irish freedom and his writings as journalist and intellectual https://twitter.com/NLIreland/status/527044846561677312/photo/1

Finally, one of Ireland’s finest poets, and a personal favourite, Paul Durcan was recognised for his contribution with the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented at this year’s Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards.  His poetry combines acute observation, comedy and pathos about the encounters of everyday life.  This link also has embedded video of Durcan’s highly engaging readings  http://t.co/MatkMzne1k

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador Tel Aviv

*Quoted in honour of the rain currently blessing Israel

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

                                                                   (WB Yeats)

You may not be following me on Twitter, so I’ve pulled together some recent items that you might find interesting about Ireland and Israel, now and in the past, being as we’re in the decade of commemorations.

As you’ll have seen from my recent message, the economic news is positive. This link is to the ESRI’s Autumn Economic Commentary;

http://esri.ie/news_events/latest_press_releases/latest-esri-forecast-pred/index.xml

The ESRI predicts “a growth in GNP of 4.9 percent in 2014 and of 5.2 percent in 2014. Declines in unemployment are also forecast, with the headline rate envisaged to fall to 9.6 per cent in 2015.”

Our tourism sector has been doing particularly well. We got an added boost from the Lonely Planet guide which has named Ireland as one of the top places to visit; http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/lonely-planet-names-ireland-as-one-of-the-top-countries-to-visit-1.1971225#.VEZD7Y-tdrs.twitter

Another major story back home is Northern Ireland.  You are probably aware that a number of issues have been dogging the peace process, specifically parades, flags, dealing with the past and domestic policy issues like welfare reform.  Talks are now underway to try to resolve these issues. Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan is representing the Government. You can read the Taoiseach’s welcome for this development here; http://www.merrionstreet.ie/index.php/2014/10/statement-by-the-taoiseach-enda-kenny-t-d-on-the-commencement-of-political-talks-in-northern-ireland

The US is strongly supportive, as ever.  Secretary of State Kerry has appointed former US Senator Gary Harte as his personal representative on Northern Ireland. Minister Flanagan welcomes this development here; https://www.dfa.ie/news-and-media/press-releases/press-release-archive/2014/october/minister-flanagan-appointment-of-former-us-senator

The decade of commemorations is truly underway with the centenary of the start of World War I.  Irish engagement in the Armistice Day ceremonies marks a new level of recognition of the many Irish who fought and died in the war under a British flag.  Reflecting this, and the new level of concord in Anglo-Irish relations, Minister Flanagan welcomed an invitation from the British Government to Ireland to lay a wreath at the Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph in London in November.  His statement ion the invitation is here; https://www.dfa.ie/news-and-media/press-releases/press-release-archive/2014/october/minister-flanagan-british-invitation-wreath-laying

We are also on the countdown to the centennial commemoration of the 1916 Rising.  This is a link to a great website to keep track of developments one hundred years ago in Ireland; http://www.rte.ie/centuryireland

A hundred years ago this September, the core group of rebels who would launch the Rising had their first meeting in Dublin.  As reported in Century Ireland, seven of the future signatories of the 1916 Proclamation met in the library of the Gaelic League on what is now Parnell Square, just a few hundred yards from the GPO which would become the iconic headquarters for the rebels;   the report is here

http://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/articles/coldly-and-deliberately-planned

The horrors of the Nazi regime continue to unfold as archivists and historians find new sources, notably since the fall of the Soviet Union.  This New York Times story from Poland has a particularly nightmarish quality because it concerns not just the period of the Holocaust but unremembered victims of the Soviet era whose remains are being regularly uncovered; http://t.co/Jz5PfA5uRS

This piece caught my eye from the Irish Times.  It is a commemoration of those Irish who “fought, spied and died” fighting the Nazis in France;

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/paris-honours-irish-who-fought-spied-and-died-for-france-1.1954055#.VDOJRHCbthw.twitter

Closer to home, Minister Flanagan attended the Cairo Conference on the Reconstruction of Gaza, pledging €2.5 million in support.  His statement is here; https://www.dfa.ie/news-and-media/press-releases/press-release-archive/2014/october/gaza-reconstruction-conference-cairo

Juxtaposing Northern Ireland and Israel, you might be interested in this article from the Jerusalem Post about the impressions four Northern Irish visitors had of Israel and the contrasts and comparisons between the respective conflicts; http://www.jpost.com/landedpages/printarticle.aspx?id=376432

We should be very proud of this group of Irish school girls who made Time Magazine’s list of most influential teenagers in the world for their research on early crop germination; http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/cork-schoolgirls-make-time-list-of-most-influential-teenagers-1.1962294#.VD0Kk2y6JjY.twitter

So that should give you a flavour of my Twitter account; the odd bit of poetry and some spectacular photos of Ireland also crop up.  If you’re not planning to join Twitter, you’ll be able to catch up on our new Embassy website which we should be launching in the next week or so.

Best wishes and Shabbat Shalom,

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador