It’s probably time for another national identity crisis. Our international political reputation nowadays is liberal, internationalist, outward facing and secular. That’s what they think of us out there (when they think of us at all beyond Paul Mescal, his brother Mr Tayto and data centres). But the international direction of travel seems to be isolationist, socially conservative, reactionary, protectionist and nationalist.
It’s unfortunate timing. To quote that great philosopher Tony Soprano: “I’m getting the feeling I came in at the end. The best is over.” The Irish have finally taken our place among the nations of the Earth, but we appear to have got the dress code wrong (the dress code is, apparently, Prince Harry circa 2005) and the club seems to be dissolving.
A simplistic narrative is developing around politics: that the far right has won the culture war, the liberal world order is at an end and that politics is all about vibes and internet memes (partly because the people spinning that perspective live on the internet). The speed with which corporations in the US have put their rainbow flags and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes away might lead people to think that the liberal consensus was just about fashion.
But I don’t really believe that. And I definitely don’t believe that in the context of Ireland.
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In recent times we had a story we told ourselves about progression and modernisation. It started with Seán Lemass’s economic reforms in the 1960s and came to a head with the referendums on equal marriage and the Eighth Amendment. It wasn’t a particularly contentious narrative. For the most part over the past two decades we leaned into a progressive notion of Ireland – and the main political differences around that were about the speed of change, not the direction in which we were headed.
Our history taught us something valuable. And I think we need to have the courage of our convictions now that the world is, once again, changing around us
Our situation is very different from that of most other western countries. We have famine, colonisation, civil war and mass emigration in our relatively recent history. Glorifying the past is at the heart of most right-wing populist projects, but nobody in this country yearns nostalgically for an earlier golden age. Thanks to a cavalcade of imperial domination, clerical repression and economic isolationism, almost everyone in Ireland agrees that the past was, to use a technical term, shit.
The evidence for that is close to home for most of us. It’s in our family histories: the women locked away in laundries, the poor children sent to industrial schools, the mass emigration, the censorship, the poverty, the shame. The liberalism that emerged from all that was neither a fashion choice nor a product of a Twitter campaign. Just ask the activists who bravely campaigned on these issues before they were popular. Irish progressivism was a fight. The modern, open version of Ireland was being born for decades. It was not adopted on a whim. It was earned.
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And this liberal tendency was and is, unlike imported right-wing populism, indigenous. It makes sense here. Irish people’s migratory internationalism segued neatly into global capitalism not because of the capitalism part but because of the global bit. Irish people had been everywhere. Our lack of a hereditary ruling class made us suspicious of the idea of merit being concentrated near the top, so our system fosters a mild, sometimes frustrating compromise. Our experience of theocratic repression made us suspicious of punishing social norms. Our history of being discriminated against can make us sensitive to discrimination.
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What we have is not perfect. I would like a more collectivist, egalitarian and socially democratic Ireland. I don’t always like how we’ve uncritically adhered to fashionable macroeconomic theories. Every gang has a little guy, who comes in after the leader has had their say, to add: “Yeah!” or “You tell ’em, boss!” When it comes to global capitalism and the bigger countries and multinational corporations that drive it, that’s largely been Ireland’s role.
I would like us to at least try to carve our own path rather than simply follow unthinkingly in the slipstream of others. Sometimes we are too timidly technocratic. Sometimes big business seems to have a bigger influence on our plans than the people who live here. I would like to see us build our economic policy out from a sense of who we are and what we want as people rather than have it form ambiently as an emergent property of abstract geopolitics.
And here’s what I see when I see Irish people at their best: They are hospitable. They are funny and irreverent. They are open minded. They are well informed. They respect learning. They don’t like bullies. They want their daughters to have the same opportunities as their sons. They want to help people fleeing hardship. And they also want the help that those people can offer in return. They want doctors and nurses and home helpers for older people. They want LGBTQ+ people to be treated with respect. They want everyone to have a home and good healthcare. They care about community.
This isn’t meant as complacent, self-congratulatory St Patrick’s Day guff. St Patrick was the architect of one of Ireland’s first ever vibe shifts after all; he understood a bit of self-reflection. Yes, we mess up. We can be cynical and parochial. Small concerns can overwhelm big issues on election day. We often plan well, then execute badly.
But there’s one thing I’m sure of: Ireland’s progressivism was never a corporate or political pose (despite the existence of some corporate and political poseurs). It was not a shallow thing. It had very little to do with PR calculations or social media pile-ons or contemporary trends. It was a deeply felt response to our history. That history taught us something valuable. And I think we need to have the courage of our convictions now that the world is, once again, changing around us.
This piece isn’t written for entrenched opportunists who see the changing world as a chance for Ireland to go back to something dark and small and narrow. It’s for everyone else who can remember the lived realities of the past few decades, who remember how we came to be this way. Right now, we’re sitting on the edge of Europe far from an existential military conflict and at the hub of an economic one. Things are about to get difficult. So who do we want to be?
Patrick Freyne is an Irish Times journalist.
