In 2020 Ireland was riding high. Phil Hogan held one of the most powerful portfolios in Europe. Joe Biden – whose love of Ireland was genuine, his desire to court the Irish American vote even more so – was about to be elected president. The European Union had accepted the Irish view on Brexit negotiations. And the unpopularity of Ireland’s policy of neutrality had not yet come to the fore on the Continent either.
As Ireland’s ego was inflating at a dangerous rate – with Paschal Donohoe’s presidency of the Eurogroup also bolstering the country’s international influence – the Economist turbocharged things when it made the case in July 2020 that Ireland had “good claim to be the world’s most diplomatically powerful country”. A fair assessment then, perhaps.
But nearly five years on, Ireland’s stock – in Europe mostly – has fallen rather precipitously. And now the prevailing view on the Continent is of a country that has squandered reams of goodwill earned over the Brexit years. Recouping it will be no easy task.
Reputation management for an entire nation is an important task at any point in time. When the trajectory of the West is as precarious and unknowable as it is at the beginning of 2025 – with capricious presidents starting their terms, collapsing centre grounds, highly disruptive technology and ongoing ground wars – it could not be more urgent.
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The greatest task facing the incoming administration, however it may be formed, is restoring Ireland’s standing. And the most serious Cabinet appointment made over the coming weeks or months will be Minister for Foreign Affairs. The government should think with great caution, and no reflexive impulses, about who is offered the title.
It is remarkable to consider all the steps it took to get here. Perhaps it was in August 2020 – when Ireland embarked on a major kamikaze mission against its own influence – that the country’s poor instinct for realpolitik revealed itself. In the midst of a fit of national hysteria, Phil Hogan resigned his position as the EU trade commissioner – hardly a more important portfolio for Ireland to hold at the time – after the backlash to “golfgate” grew too noisy and distracting. This was an instance where Ireland prioritised its distaste for minorly-flouted Covid regulations over the diplomatic and political health of the entire country. The monumental foolishness (and self-righteousness) required to forsake the trade portfolio at such a critical juncture caused a lot raised eyebrows in Brussels. And Ireland’s influence only waned from there.
And now look. As Eoin Drea pointed out in these pages last September, Ursula von der Leyen’s allocation of the democracy, justice and rule-of-law portfolio to Michael McGrath “shows just how far Ireland’s stock has fallen in Brussels”. The broad consensus on the Continent is becoming harder and harder for Ireland to dodge: a defence freeloader, a tax haven, an unstable economy too dependent on the whims of Trump, and a country that takes sometimes hardline and off-piste stances on foreign affairs.
Take, for example, soon-to-be-outgoing president Michael D Higgins. During his presidency, Justine McCarthy wrote last week, he “infuriated a smorgasbord of EU officials, the Israeli government ... critics of Fidel Castro ... Northern Ireland unionists” among others.
I would venture that none of this is a good thing for a country whose standing in Europe has tanked (“Ireland gets ‘screwed’ as EU influence ebbs,” Politico reported on Monday, while this newspaper reported that Irish influence is “declining”). The same applies to Higgins’s letter to the president of Iran (and his subsequent accusation that the Israeli embassy circulated it), not to mention the president’s website playing host to a letter suggesting peace be brokered with Russia.
And now there’s a president who has the power to totally upend the entire economic model waiting in the wings in America.
Ireland may bask in its reputation for being a peacenik, and plenty adore Higgins’s creative approach to the supposed impartiality of his office. And perhaps at peacetime none of this would matter so much. But Ireland no longer holds a central position of influence in the European Union, and the politics of the entire Continent have been thrown into disarray by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If Ireland wishes to foster and hold on to its policy of militaristic neutrality it has to face up to the material consequences of such positions: these include increased unpopularity in Europe, less and less control over the levers of the bloc, and in turn greater reliance on other partners.
None of this is a foregone conclusion. Simon Harris has explained his plan to engage with Trump. Donohoe also has the skills and intellect to steer Ireland through these choppy international waters. But first a dose of self-awareness: Ireland cannot rely on a woolly and soft reputation any more, as the gentle land of peaceniks, saints and scholars. The world is coarser and the country needs to adapt.