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I attended the launch of the Irish Exporter’s Association immensely useful and user-friendly  Top 250 Exporters 2015 this morning. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD, launched the publication, noting in his remarks that with our recovery providing the platform and strong growth now powering our economy, we should aim realistically for a return to full employment. We have deeply rooted companies driven by exports that are fostering growth throughout the regions.  With two out of three Irish companies investing in technology, we can see how dominant technology is to our top companies and to our economy.

Minister Bruton noted too that there was a strong entrepreneurial culture developing in Ireland and that the linkages between indigenous companies and FDI companies are intensifying. This is really very significant because FDI was never an end in itself: rather, in providing productive capacity, technological development, exports and jobs, FDI was conceived as a catalyst for the development of the indigenous economy, cut off as we were at independence from the island’s existing industrial base by partition.

The IEA’s Top 250 Exporters 2015 is an indispensable guide to what is going on in the Irish economy. We have come a very long way from the time when Ireland was a largely agricultural economy serving the food needs of Britain’s industrialised cities, often beef on the hoof. Today, the leading sectors in our export drive are ICT, medical devices, life sciences and high-end food and beverages. As the CEO of the IEA, Simon McKeever, noted in his remarks, ICT accounts for 44% of our exports, Life Sciences 32%, miscellaneous 13% and food and beverages 11%. Simon pointed out that there is great dynamism too, driven by acquisitions, with Ireland’s largest company Medtronic moving from 20th last year to 3rd this year on the list; Ingersoll Rand from 35th to 5th; and Activas from 70th to 6th.

Investec has partnered with the IEA in producing this report for the last five years.  In his presentation, Investec’s  economist Philip O’Sullivan noted that Irish GDP is at an all time high.  Exports have been growing steadily, year on year.  Moreover, growth in the “traditional” industrial sector is now in double digits.  This, combined with growth unbroken in the last eight quarters, shows the increasing depth of our recovery as we enter a strong growth phase.

The Top 250 Exporters 2015 is not just a list but a short health report on the export sector, with profiles of the top companies and commentary from, amongst others, the IDA’s Martin Shanahan, Enterprise Ireland’s Julie Sinnamon, Bord Bía’s Aidan Cotter and key players in different sectors.

You can download a copy of the report here.

Best wishes,

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Director General, Trade Division

Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade

It has come time to say goodbye to Israel.  My family and I are to return to Ireland tomorrow because I have had the honour of being appointed Director General of the Trade and Promotion Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.  It is a fantastic opportunity and I am delighted to have the chance to engage in this vital area.  In the normal course diplomatic postings are of four years duration but it happens from time to time in one’s career that Headquarters has other ideas!

We have enjoyed our two year stay here and we have learned an awful lot.  We have been thrilled to set foot in Bethlehem, the Negev, Masada, Galilee, and countless towns and villages, but above all in Jerusalem where it seems that heaven and earth are bound closer than anywhere else.  It was exciting to explore and uncover aspects of Irish Israel relations from the past, such as the key roles played in Israel’s history by such Irish figures as Col. Henry Patterson and Mike Flanagan.  More contemporary highlights included the visits of Ministers Shatter, Coveney, Lynch and of course the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan last February.

And in my two years here, I have experienced the start of the Kerry peace talks, the collapse of those talks, the war in Gaza, the end of a government, elections and the start of a new government.  For a diplomatic posting of any length that’s plenty!

Cultural highlights included our own reading of Joyce’s Ulysses at the Residence for last year’s Bloomsday and the production of Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape this year.

More discreetly, we engaged with peace builders and NGOs who patiently build the foundations for Israel’s peaceful future.  As we learned in Northern Ireland, this work is often unseen and thankless but ultimately vital.

All the preparatory reading about Israel cannot substitute for living here.  I leave profoundly impressed with all that Israel has achieved in such a short span of time – in state building, militarily, economically and socially.

Of all the places I have visited, none have impressed me more than Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum.  In its moral clarity, in its accounting of what happened that is both respectful of its victims and of the facts, in its architecture that is both labyrinthine and cathedral-like, it inspires an awe that deepens rather than dissipates on each visit.

And then there is the Occupation.  I profoundly share the Irish Government’s position that it must end.  Only in the realisation of self-determination can both Israelis and Palestinians reach their full potential as distinct communities of people.  Only in separate and sovereign self-determination can both live as two cooperative neighbours, governed by democracy, law and mutual respect.

We have very happy memories of time spent with the Israel Ireland League and count many of its members as friends, including the irreplaceable and effervescent chairman, Malcolm Gafson.  Diplomatic colleagues were not only knowledgeable guides but some have become good friends.  We encountered remarkable people involved in peace building, the arts and academia.  And we’ll never forget the thrill of walking into our garden and simply picking lemons, oranges, kumquats, and mangos from our trees!

I would like to say a special thanks to Mary my wife and my children.  My kids have followed me to the US, Korea and Israel.  In New York we lived through 9/11.  They listened in Seoul to CNN warn of an imminent attack from North Korea in April 2012 and stood in the Residence’s bomb-shelter last summer as Iron Dome very audibly did its work in the skies nearby.  More than that, they adjusted to life in new societies and new schools.  Mary is the other working half of this partnership and was very much captain of the Residence.  She worked briefly too in the Embassy providing vital assistance when it was needed.

I would like to pay a special tribute to David Lee, who began as my PA and is now our office manager; he has been the epitome of courtesy, commitment, enthusiasm and above all integrity, a quality that I have come to value more and more.  We are now supported in the office by Joseph Sa’ad, a great addition as driver/office secretary.  I would like to thank too all those who responded to my messages from time to time.

There is disappointment at not having two more years here, a thrill about the new job and excitement about going home after six years abroad.  The Embassy here will be in good hands under the leadership of Ambassador designate Alison Kelly, my friend and colleague, and the new Deputy Head of Mission, Tim Reilly.

I wish you the very best.

Shabbat Shalom and farewell,

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador, Tel Aviv

www.eamonncmckee.com

email: eamonn.mckee@dfa.ie

Here’s some updates on events in Israel with an Irish interest.  You can stay in touch with us through our website (www.embassyofireland.co.il ) which carries a live-feed of the Embassy’s Twitter account with links to articles and photographs of interest, and through my twitter account @EamonnMcKee.

Prof. Guy Beiner was not long returned to Ben Gurion University after his sabbatical when he organised an Irish symposium on 1 June last.  The main speaker was Queen’s University Professor Keith Jeffery, a renowned historian most know for his history of Britain’s external intelligence service MI6 (MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909 to 1949 (London, 2010). Prof. Jeffery also wrote the seminal Ireland the Great War which was the topic of his fascinating talk at BGU. He is a wonderful and engaging communicator about history and he held the audience with his wit and erudition.

We had a full house at BGU with over a hundred guests, comprising faculty, students and even some interested locals. The event was supported by a grant from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. For the Irish themed party afterwards, Guinness and Tullamore Dew provided product support and lively traditional Irish music came courtesy of the band Black Velvet. The day was a great mix of the educational and the social, perfect.

Thanks to Guy for his enthusiasm, energy and academic brilliance not least on Irish history: His book Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory (Madison, 2007) was highly acclaimed.

The Israel Ireland Friendship League gathered to recall a unique piece of history at the Armoured Corps Museum at Latrun. It is a wonderful place, set on top of the strategic hilltop guarding the road to Jerusalem with panoramic views around the rolling hills. Peaceful now, even with the presence of tanks serried in all their quiet might, Latrun has been the scene of some fearful battles, including in 1948. An Irishman, Mike Flanagan, took some Cromwell tanks from his own unit of the British Army to help the nascent state of Israel defend its existence. My remarks at the event available on this blog (photos found on the sites noted above).

Thanks to the passion and commitment of Prof. Linda Ben Zvi at Tel Aviv University, this year’s Samuel Beckett Event was not a lecture as is traditional, but a performance of Krapp’s Last Tape by ITIM Theatre Ensemble, with the great Doron Tavori in the lead role under the brilliant direction of Remi Yerushalemi. We had a panel discussion with the audience and of course an after-party. Thanks to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for a grant which made this possible and to Guinness for adding another Irish dimension through their support for the after-party. My opening remarks on this blog.

Finally, we are approaching the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo. This is seen as the climatic and definitive encounter between France and counter-revolutionary forces allied under Britain’s leadership. However, there was an important, even vital, Irish dimension and you might find my blog on this of interest: you can find it on this blog. How we in Ireland view Waterloo says much about our awakening as a society from what Joyce termed ‘the nightmare of history’.

Shabbat Shalom,

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador, Tel Aviv

www.eamonncmckee.com

on Twitter: @EamonnMcKee

Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett

Remarks by HE Dr Eamonn McKee, Ambassador of Ireland

Without doubt, Samuel Beckett is a colossus of 20^th century literature. Paradoxically he is one of literature’s most distinctive voices yet his themes are the most universal: existence, awareness, memory, the nature of self and the ineffable quality of reality.

Paradoxically too Beckett is both a recognisably Irish writer in his characters and experiences and words. Yet, he sought to sublimate this Irishness on a wider, unnameable and infinitely more universal canvas.

If the origin of the universe is the big bang, the origin of Beckett as a writer is what he called ‘the disaster’. If reality was unreliable, and if consciousness seeking certainty of itself could only achieve uncertainty, then this was a disaster.

The only possible negotiation of this was in the act of writing. Only writing could bridge the gap between the bearable and the impossible; between ‘I can’t go on’ and ‘I must go on.’

In his writing, Beckett is detached from his characters but in a benign way. He is a forgiving God in his universe. It is we who judge ourselves. In Krapp’s Last Tape, Beckett has his character use recordings to listen to and to cast judgement on his younger self or younger selves. But he is in fact casting judgement on himself, on his life. Does he find redemption or condemnation in these encounters?

We cannot escape the question, would we?

Beckett moved seamlessly from prose to the theatre. The theatre offered him one thing that prose could not – silence. Beckett is probably the greatest exponent of the tension between the spoken word and silence.

More than that, as the great Irish literary critic Seamus Deane has observed in his wonderful précis of Beckett in Field Day Anthology III, the stage for Beckett offered tangibility. Because of this tangibility, Beckett was famously exacting about the quality and precision of the theatrical performances of his work.

Again prose could not offer this: Drama provided physical characters in the form of the actors themselves: The stage offered a reliable three dimensional space. And the performance provided measured time, real time. Where all of these could slip into nothingness in prose, on the stage they were actualised.

However, in their actualisation, Beckett wanted exactitude. In drama, Beckett was the composer and conductor. The actors were the instruments of his words. The whole production was the realisation of the world he was creating. As his instruments, actors must achieve precision of timing and quality of tone, just as the director must find exactitude of intention.

Only the most committed of directors and actors dare to perform Beckett. Only the greatest directors and actors can achieve this. With certainty of just such achievement, I am honoured to welcome you to this performance.

I would like to thank Prof. Linda Ben Zvi for her enormous commitment in sustaining this annual event. This year it is a very special one thanks to her inspiration. I would also like to thank Rina Yerushalmi, one of Israel’s most renowned directors and Doron Tavori, one of Israel’s most accomplished stage actors, for making this evening’s event possible.  Thanks too to ITIM Theatre Ensemble for their enthusiastic support from the outset. I would like to acknowledge the support of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for its financial grant and Guinness for their support in a different form of liquidity!

Thank you

Yad Le’Shiryon Museum at the IDF Armoured Corps Memorial

Remarks by Eamonn McKee, Ambassador of Ireland

Laturn, 5 June 2015

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, members of Michael ‘Mike’ Flanagan’s family. It is my honour to be with you here today as we rededicate his memory in this place of honour for Israel’s fallen.  I wish to pay a special tribute of the President of the Israel Ireland Friendship League, Malcolm Gafson. Malcolm is a tireless searcher for opportunities to promote, recall and honour the ties between Ireland and Israel. This gathering today is a further testament to his commitment and his contribution to the ties that bind us.

I would like to express my thanks too for the heartfelt cooperation of the Yad Le’Shiryon Museum here at the IDF Armoured Corps Memorial.

In Ireland we are commemorating a series of centenaries of events that gave birth to independent Ireland, the State that embodies the free will and self-determination of the nation of Ireland.  We achieved that statehood through military means.

The rebels of 1916 knowingly went into a battle that would certainly cost them their liberty and could cost them their lives.  The men and women who continued the struggle in the War of Independence offered the same sacrifice.

All those who fought for Ireland did so for love of country. That is the foundational act upon which all nation states are called into being.

Far more rare is the man or woman who risks liberty and life for the love of another country. Michael Flanagan was such a man. He had already fought in the Second World War, a conflict that clearly pitted good against evil.  Rarely has human evil been so starkly revealed as it was in the death camps of the Holocaust.

Like so many of his generation, he was appalled by that and convinced that the Jewish people deserved and needed a homeland. Like very few of his generation, he acted upon that. And he did so in a very direct way, helping to arm the fledgling state against those who would seek to destroy it as its inception.

We stand before this Cromwell tank, as tangible and potent a contribution by any man to any cause as can be found. In its time, the Cromwell tank was a fearsomely effective machine of war. It and its companion tanks delivered by Mike Flanagan formed the core of the new State’s armoured division. More than that, Mike Flanagan would fight alongside his Jewish compatriots in the struggle for Independence.

Mike Flanagan is part of a great Irish contribution to the birth of Israel. Col. John Henry Patterson from County Longford became the ‘godfather’ of the Israel Army by his command of the Jewish Mule Corps at Gallipoli and then of the Jewish Legion during the Palestine campaign in World War I.  The heroes of the Irish War of Independence like Michael Collins and Tom Barry became inspirational figures for the early Zionist fighters looking to establish an independent state of Israel.  Irishmen and men of Irish heritage helped ship fleeing refugees from post-Holocaust Europe to Mandate Palestine, running and breaking the British embargo.  Other Irish fought too for Israel’s independence but many of them have been lost to history.

And after the first generation of battles were fought and won in the establishment of the State of Israel, Mike Flanagan converted, married and settled in Israel for most of his life. Mike Flanagan was a man of many achievements but a man of mystery too. He was not a glory hunter but content to see the fruits of his labours in the fact of Israel established and defended. The esteem in which Mike Flanagan is held by so many key Israeli figures clearly points to a life of largely hidden acts, carried out in the service of Israel.

Today, we recall his name. Today, we recall his deeds. Today we salute his contribution to the establishment of the State of Israel.

Thank you.

[For photos of this event, go to @EamonnMcKee or the twitter feed on the Embassy’s website at http://www.embassyofireland.co.il ]

You will no doubt have seen the headlines. The news propelled Ireland to the front pages across the globe. In what is regarded at home and abroad as a dramatic statement about Ireland today, the same-sex marriage referendum was endorsed 62:38 and in 43 out of 44 constituencies.

Crowds gathered and celebrated in a festive atmosphere in and around Dublin Castle’s spacious courtyard. All through that sunny Saturday the vote count confirmed something seismic was happening. Social media soon flooded with images of the emotional cord struck by this outcome, perhaps summed up as acceptance and pride.

In short, gay pride became Irish pride as Ireland took a leading global position on gay rights, equality and tolerance.

And I think that it is not hyperbolic to consider this outcome historic (see my short blog on this last Saturday).

One of the most charming comments was from the leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon: “I bet there will be a few marriage proposals in the pubs of Dublin tonight. What a lovely thought. Enjoy the celebrations, Ireland.”

At the other end of the spectrum, the Archbishop of Dublin Micheal Martin stood robed in red with his tall white hat and said ruefully to children about to be confirmed as Catholics, “Boys and girls, I made my confirmation sixty years ago. Your world is different from mine.” (This is quoted in Danny Hakim’s New York Times’s front page report here. His report usefully sums up the historic context and the many battles that have way marked Saturday’s result.)

UNSG Ban Ki-moon, in Ireland to receive the Tipperary International Peace Award, hailed the outcome: “This is truly an historic moment. Ireland has become the first country in the world to approve marriage equality in a nationwide referendum. The result sends an important message to the world; all people are entitled to enjoy their human rights and human dignity, no matter whom they are or whom they love.”

I would recommend reading his full speech accepting the award here. It eloquently captures Ireland’s diplomatic engagement on global issues as seen by the UN Secretary General: our leading role on NPT, our contribution to the UN and UN Peacekeeping, our overseas development programme, leadership on human rights, and the inspiration provided by the Northern Ireland peace process.

Best wishes,

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Tel Aviv

Ireland’s economic health was checked out in the Ministers for Finance’s spring economic statement. As one Irish economist put it, we are looking at a balanced diet in the years ahead; unemployment falling to below 7%, steady annual growth of 3.25% to 2020 (twice the EU average), and a budget deficit below 3% of GDP.

Our increasingly robust health is due to competitiveness across the board, including agriculture, agrifood, information and communications technology, medical technology, pharmaceutical and chemical, and tourism. Having taken the pain and made the right decisions since the 2008 crisis, we are now clearly in the recovery phase; link to Minister Michael Noonan’s statement here

http://budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2015/Documents/Spring%20Economic%20Statement%20For%20Web.pdf

Ireland’s economic development has been driven by foreign direct investment (FDI) and innovative indigenous Irish companies like ICON. I was delighted to welcome ICON to the residence last night for a networking event. ICON is here for the IATI Biomed 2015 Conference, to get together with its local staff at its company here, and to meet its Israeli clients (link here to the company’s background http://www.iconplc.com/company).

Thanks to companies like ICON and the synergizing relationship between FDI and local entrepreneurship, Ireland has created a global hub in the medical devices and biomedical fields. Part of the revolution of the “internet of things” is biotechnology which will increasingly allow us to take control of our own health. Israel’s biomed profile is increasingly innovative and dynamic. Like start-ups, there is huge potential for Irish Israeli cooperation in this exciting field.

One of the best ways to boost Irish Israeli relations from business to tourism, is to get a regular direct flight established between Tel Aviv and Dublin. Clyde Hutchinson of the Irish Israel Business Network (www.iibn.org ) has launched a campaign to help achieve this. To support the campaign look here www.DUBtoTLV.org

The Annual Beckett Lecture is fast approaching and I am delighted to say that this year we have a real treat. Prof. Linda Ben Zvi at Tel Aviv University, the inspiration and energy behind this event, has organised a one night only performance on 8^th June of Beckett’s masterpiece Krapp’s Last Tape. It is being presented by the Itim Theatre Ensemble with one of Israel’s leading actors, Doron Tavori, and one of its leading directors, Rina Yerushalmi.

As Prof. Zvi notes, “Samuel Beckett has long had a special place in the hearts of Israelis because, while he presents unflinching explorations of the human condition in stark, even bleak, physical and emotional situations, he also offers humor and laughter to help face suffering and still go on. Doron Tavori’s greatness lies in his ability to convey both the tragedy of life and its humor, in his multi-levelled portrayal of Krapp, directed with great subtlety and sensitivity by Rina Yerushalmi.”  After the performance there will be an inter-active discussion with the audience.

Pollster’s getting it wrong, a neck-and-neck race that wasn’t, the formation of a government of the conservative and right: no, not the election here in Israel but the one in Britain. I could not resist blogging on it (www.eamonncmckee.com ) because the result raises all kinds of fascinating issues; the rise of the Scottish National Party from six to fifty six MPs and a referendum on Britain staying in the EU chief among them. Not since Parnell led the Irish Parliamentary Party in the 1880s has such a cohesive group of nationalists dedicated to independence sat in the House of Commons.

Finally, if you liked Ireland in Five Easy Pieces, you might also enjoy my blog on Irish writer Sebastian Barry who explores the impact of Irish independence on private lives in his novels.

Best wishes,

Eamonn

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador Tel Aviv

Thursday May 7^th was certainly a very interesting day.

Israel’s new coalition government emerged from a late night deal that defied general expectations based on opinion polls, albeit with an unexpectedly perilous majority. After the election on 17^th March, the public and pollsters alike questioned how polls could have gotten it so wrong when they predicted that Likud and Zionist Union were neck-and-neck.

May 7^th also saw the election of a government in Britain that also defied the opinion polls. Polls had uniformly put the Conservatives and Labour neck-and-neck, too-close-to-call; and pundits more or less had to follow suit, numbing the public discourse on what the election was actually about. Polls had predicted as virtually certain that it would be a hung parliament with a lengthy period of negotiations before the government was formed. How the pollsters got it wrong: The exit polls on the night were so dramatically different from the pollster’s projections that they produced universal hat-eating consternation. When the exit polls proved accurate, polling suddenly looked about as scientific as astrology.

Why should Ireland care about the British general election? You may well ask and the answer is three-fold.

The first and most obvious was that Northern Ireland elected its eighteen Members of Parliament. The result saw the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) keep its tally of eight seats. The Ulster Unionist Party gained two seats (one at the expense of Sinn Féin, the other from a DUP incumbent) having entered the contest without any. The non-aligned Alliance Party lost its seat in East Belfast to the DUP. Sinn Féin lost one to the UUP and dropped to four seats. The nationalist SDLP retained its three seats and there was one (returned) Independent candidate elected.

There had been a lot of speculation that Northern Ireland MPs (except Sinn Fein who don’t take their seats there) might have a role in supporting a minority government at Westminster, but the Conservative’s outright majority has put paid to that. The policies pursued by the new Conservative government will shape much political discourse within Northern Ireland since they directly affect the decisions of the power-sharing government there, led by the DUP and Sinn Féin.

This raises the second matter of interest to Ireland and that is the Tory commitment to hold a referendum on membership of the European Union, probably in 2017. A vote to exit (aka the ‘Brexit’) would have profound implications for Ireland on a whole range of areas, including trade, Northern Ireland, the free movement of people between us, foreign policy formation, and a host of other things that we share within the European Union.

The third area of interest for Ireland was the Scottish vote and indeed that turned out to be the story of the election with the Scottish National Party (SNP) winning fifty-six of the fifty-nine seats in Scotland, at the expense of the Labour Party. While Scotland last year rejected the referendum to leave the United Kingdom and become a sovereign nation, the momentum has added fifty MPs to its pre-election tally of six at Westminster.

The last time such a large bloc of nationalists entered the House of Commons was when the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) sat there from 1882 until it was wiped out in the 1918 general election. The IPP was wiped out because it had pursued devolved government for Ireland for thirty years without ever clinching the deal from the British government. Like the IPP, the SNP is committed to independence.

As a very interesting day, May 7^th is then a harbinger of very interesting times ahead.

But for that very reason, it was also a great day. Because whether in Israel, Scotland, Northern Ireland, England or Wales, May 7^th demonstrated the genius of democracy.

There is something oddly satisfying about the pollsters getting it wrong because it affirms the private sanctity of the ballot. Conversely there is something annoying about when they get it right. For when they get it right, it always feels as if they are pre-empting that final walk to the polling booth when you have to make up your mind.

That walk and the act of democratic expression are as near a sacred duty as one can undertake. It is not just about how your country is to be governed. It is also because democracy is the great valve that mediates change, the alternative and antidote to conflict. Brave and admirable is every politician who submits to its verdict because the verdict is a ruthless expression of the people’s will. Heads roll but only metaphorically; the leaders of the British Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats resigned on the spot, ending youthful careers as leaders. David Cameron triumphs with a clear political mandate to make decisions. Nicola Sturgeon is conferred as the leader of Scottish nationalism thanks to her qualities and the confidence she inspires. Without democracy, heads actually roll.

The political fortunes of parties and their leaders reflect the wishes of people voting within natural constituencies. They are natural because voters accept and hallow their boundaries. And in doing so they avoid conflict even when great issues are at stake. It is no coincidence that functioning democracies don’t fight violently within themselves or with each other.

Empires and imperial rule frustrate democracy’s innate conflict resolution mechanism because they project power beyond natural jurisdictions and that projection is resisted.

The projection of British power in Ireland was repeatedly resisted; during the twelfth century Norman and sixteenth century Tudor conquests, during the Cromwellian and Williamite wars of the seventeenth century, in the great rebellion of 1798 and the lesser rebellions of 1803, 1848 and 1867, and finally in the Easter Rising of 1916 and the War of Independence of 1919 to 1921.

Ireland’s history would have been very different had self-determination been allowed to express itself. Once it was allowed to do so – with independence in 1922 and again in the all-island 1998 referenda on the Good Friday Agreement that ended the conflict in Northern Ireland – Ireland and Britain embarked on a bilateral relationship of cooperation and increasingly now one of high mutual regard. And that high regard will shape how we maintain or adjust that relationship in the years ahead, whatever they produce.

As we in Ireland commemorate the centenaries of events that resulted from the frustration of Irish self-determination, we can celebrate May 7^th and all that follows as the right way to do things come what may.

Eamonn McKee