I have a very strong sense of being not only Irish but European as well - and, for reasons I develop below, I am proud of being a European. Such a sense of Europeanness is, I believe, common enough among continental Europeans, but is less usual in this and the neighbouring island of Britain and, I believe, in Scandinavia.
There are several reasons for this. First, whereas since at least the time of Charlemagne 12 centuries ago, much of western Europe has shared a common cultural and politico-military experience, northern Europe has kept itself somewhat apart from what might be described as the mainland of Europe.
This phenomenon was, of course, reinforced by the Reformation, as a result of which the northern peoples other than the Irish became overwhelmingly Protestant - whereas on the mainland most peoples either had a mixed religious experience or, in the case of the Mediterranean lands, remained exclusively Roman Catholic.
Although Ireland stayed predominantly Catholic, nevertheless from the end of the 18th century onwards the Union with Britain effectively cut us off from the continent, and during the past two centuries we have also been much more deeply influenced by negative British attitudes towards the rest of Europe than we have realised or been willing to admit.
Moreover, the adoption of English as our principal language, together with the social impact of the emigration to Britain and North America of almost half of each successive generation of our young people, has endowed us with an Anglo-American orientation - one might almost say culture - that is fundamentally different from that of continental Europeans. Because of this many Irish people feel emotionally closer to the geographically distant United States than to much nearer continental Europe.
Nevertheless, although most of us are unaware of it, on many key issues our attitudes are in fact distinctively European, and strongly differentiated from those of Americans. And among these key matters are four great moral revolutions in political attitudes, each specifically European in its origins and/or its dynamic, which together have radically reversed the centuries-old European mindset.
What are these four revolutions? The first has been the emergence through the Council of Europe of a concept of personal human rights that transcends the sovereignty of states, and also of a right to freedom from state violence in the form of the death penalty. In the first half of this century it was inconceivable that human rights could ever be accepted in this way throughout Western Europe - never mind be exported from Europe to other parts of the world through such structures as the Lome Convention and the organs of the United Nations. The second of our revolutions has been the emergence of a conviction that the rich north is under an obligation to aid the poor south. However inadequately this obligation may be implemented, it represents a total rejection of the perverse transfers from poor to rich countries that had been a feature of the long-established colonial system - a system which, despite the escape of Ireland from British rule, and unrest in India, seemed when I was growing up to be a permanent feature of the world order. The third revolution has involved the emergence in Europe of a profound and total rejection of war as an instrument of policy, and the consequent establishment within western Europe of a unique "zone of peace", which has now been extended, I believe, to north-eastern Europe. Nothing in Europe's history - ancient, medieval or modern - had given any reason to believe that such a development would ever become possible in our continent.
And the fourth revolution has been the growth in recent times of ecological consciousness, which is now creating a new moral imperative at a global level. As in the case of human rights, this is seen as transcending national sovereignty.
Each one of these four moral revolutions has involved a radical reversal of traditional thinking in the course of the second half of the present century. And each is specifically European in its origins and/or its dynamic. First, a human rights code and court to which individuals can have recourse for remedial action when their own government and courts have failed to protect their rights is a purely European idea. Such an intrusion into national sovereignty would not be acceptable in the United States.
(In fairness it should, however, be added that the American Constitution provides such strong protection of citizens' rights that a supranational element in this process is less necessary there than in many European countries where the human rights role of the courts in this area is much more limited than in the United States - or, indeed, in Ireland). In part at least because of the lead given by Europe in this matter, the idea of legal protection for human rights is now spreading, e.g. through the introduction of a human rights clause into the European Community's Lome Agreements with half the developing world, and through the recent reconsideration by the UN of its hitherto sacrosanct principle of refraining from intervention in the internal affairs of member-states when they commit gross breaches of human rights. As to the second point, the development of a zone of peace is also a uniquely European phenomenon - deriving directly from the horrifying experience of the European wars in the first half of this century. And the coincidence of this development with the abandonment by European governments of capital punishment - even in defiance of majority opinion in some countries - reinforces my belief that in recent decades we have witnessed in Europe, largely without realising it, the beginning of one of the most fundamental revolutions in human history, involving a rejection of all state violence.
I believe too that in a process that may, perhaps, take a century or more to complete, this revolution will ultimately spread worldwide - so long as we can avoid nuclear conflicts in the Middle East or developing world.
On the third point, while colonisation was, of course, a European phenomenon, it was also Europe that led the process of reversing the former perverse colonial transfers from poor countries to rich. Until Japan recently became a significant aid donor, Europe - with Canada - was the only major donor of funds to Third World countries. For despite its generous and enlightened provision of Marshall Aid to Europe in the aftermath of the second World War, the United States has given little aid to developing countries other than credits for arms purchases. Finally, it is Europe that has been pushing the ecological issue: the Soviet Union was the great polluter - billions are now being spent cleaning up in its wake - and at the Rio de Janeiro conference several years ago the United States dragged its feet. It is, perhaps, worth adding that Europeans also have a sense of the primacy of international law which Americans - whether because of their superpower role or because of their relative geographical remoteness - do not seem to share. This was evident when the US ignored the World Court ruling on the mining of Nicaraguan ports, and on the occasions when it invaded Grenada and supported the Israeli bombing of the PLO in Tunis. Of course, on most of these matters it is possible to find fault with aspects of European policy: thus our European zone of peace exports weapons to Third World countries, some of which have poor human rights records; much aid is tied to the purchase of goods from the donor country; and even Europe's anti-pollution moves look like falling short of what is needed.
Nevertheless, it is, I believe, highly significant that these four fundamental moral shifts in political thought in the second half of this century have all emanated from Europe. Nothing in the physical or intellectual condition of our continent in mid-century suggested then that it retained a potential for such a dynamic future role. Many in Europe and elsewhere believed in 1945 that our continent's hour had definitively passed, that other parts of the globe, such as the United States and Russia, and perhaps later Japan and China, would dominate the world, not merely economically but intellectually as well.
Thus Europe has been the great surprise of the last half-century - economically, as has been widely recognised, but also intellectually and morally. On all four of these key issues Irish attitudes are in close harmony with the thrust of European thinking and are notably divergent from the American approach.
It is somewhat puzzling that most Irish people seem quite unaware of Europe's unique role in these areas and appear to take little pride in being part of a continent which in areas of particular concern to us - human rights, development co-operation, peace and the environment - has, against all the odds, offered such striking moral leadership during the past half-century.
Perhaps we need to reflect more seriously on our continent - its history, its culture and its achievements.