The diplomat who kept the Irish flag flying in Berlin

From Ulysses readings to rousing renditions of Raglan Road, there is little that Dan Mulhall hasn't done to keep the tricolour flying in Germany.

During his four-year term as Ambassador to Germany – ending this month – Ireland’s relationship with Germany has changed, changed utterly.

The euro zone crisis and Ireland’s EU/IMF programme has placed Germany on Irish radars like never before; the Irish embassy in the elegant former Mendelssohn bank, Mulhall says, has seen more Dublin visitors in the past two years than in the decade previously.

At Taoiseach Enda Kenny's side in meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mulhall says the leaders' relationship has remained warm even at the chilliest moments of the crisis.

Discussing the details of Merkel-Kenny meetings is verboten, but the ambassador reveals one interesting detail: they take place in English.

“For the most part, anyway,” he says. “Her English is very fluent and very impressive.”

And what is his up-close verdict on arguably the world’s most powerful woman?

“Very positive,” he says. “She is very friendly and charming when you meet her one-to-one.”

The most striking thing about the Irish crisis as seen from Berlin, Mulhall says, is how little has changed in Germans' fundamentally positive opinion of Ireland.

That is because, as an Irish Times poll revealed last year, just three per cent of Germans associate the Irish with crisis. Some 80 per cent of Germans polled mentioned either the Irish countryside or the pubs .

Germans’ positive views of Ireland may have a green and misty tinge, particularly among older generations, but Mulhall says it would be short-sighted to undermine an image of the island that sells lots of butter and beef.

“However, I try to adjust the focus a little, update and fill out the German image of Ireland,” he says.

Irish knowledge of Germany also has its limitations, he suggests, with the plethora of German car advertisements that has generated a homogenous image of “the Germans” as a hard-working, disciplined – not necessarily fun – people.

"What I've learned from being in Germany," he says, "is that the country is very large and, when you travel around, the diversity is really quite profound."

Digital diplomacy
Aided by his expert embassy staff and generous wife, Greta, Mulhall steered an ambitious programme of economic and cultural diplomacy – and found time to embrace digital diplomacy via Twitter.

During Ireland’s EU presidency he gave 64 speeches in every corner of this vast country, clocking up nearly 30,000 km on the road.

Learning German on his arrival (“a structured language with a complex but defined grammar”) paid off at these events, he says, allowing him to explain directly to his audiences Ireland’s slide into crisis – and progress towards recovery.

For most Germans, he says, Ireland is perceived as a reform success story or, at the very least, as the country that owned up to its problems.

“The question most often put to me is ‘what can the other crisis countries learn from Ireland’s reform success?’” he says.

One of his responses: with no industrial giants like Siemens to fall back on, Ireland needs to win back foreign-direct investment – including using fiscal inducements – to ensure its recovery.

“That tends to go down reasonably well,” he says, and counters critics of Ireland’s corporate tax rate.

There was some drama on Mulhall's watch, like when the Bundestag's budgetary committee – and The Irish Times – saw details of Ireland's budget before the Dáil did.

Germany's explanation: its MPs are legally obliged to vet Ireland's reform progress and plans before releasing German taxpayers' next bailout contribution. Mulhall says he "doesn't believe there was any intention to cause offence . . . but I made sure that the Bundestag was aware of the unhappiness that existed."

The singing executives
And what of the Anglo recordings, catapulting Ireland onto Bild's front page in June? Some German contacts were "puzzled and a bit unsure" by the affair, the ambassador concedes diplomatically. His response: to pen a newspaper article distancing the Irish people from the singing bank executives.

“Those who read it responded positively to the arguments I made,” he says.

As he departs for London, Mulhall agrees that Germany’s economic strength has given it extra heft in the ongoing debate over how best to reform the continent for the future. But he does not believe recent events have given birth to the terrible beauty of a German EU hegemon.

"There are a lot of things happening in Europe for which Germany is the key, but it is not decisive," he says. "Europe . . . will only move forward in a credible way if all member states are part of the process."