Madam, - Donal Flynn (January 11th) attempts an answer to the question I raised (December 27th) about the weakness of Irish business enterprise since independence. His first explanation for this "persisting comparative weakness" is that Ireland is a small country. But does that argument hold water when placed beside the abundant native enterprise that made not only Norway, but also Holland, Denmark, Catalonia, Iceland and Hong Kong rich? For the brave entrepreneur, one's home country is merely the base from which to conquer the world.
In very poor Norway after independence - the instance which Tom Garvin's book most glaringly ignored - the native forests, and native skills in fishing and ship-building, sufficed for prosperity, because the country had sufficient businessmen who saw the value and potential of these resources and used them boldly.
As well as pleading Irish smallness, Mr Flynn follows Tom Garvin in blaming the Irish political environment; specifically, the empty rhetoric and irrational behaviour of present-day Irish government. But in those small countries with teeming entrepreneurship which I listed above, were the governments models of seriousness and rationality? And have the flaws of Irish government been such as to prevent the abundant foreign investments in Irish potential that give us our present standard of living?
I hoped that my pointing to the Norwegian example would make evident the basic reason why Irish business enterprise since independence had been weak. It is the persisting underestimation by Irish people both of their potential as entrepreneurs and of the value and potential of Irish natural resources (including location) and skills.
This unwarranted negative valuation of the native self and circumstance was and is, of course, something that has been learned. It is at one with the slogan "Nil aon mhaith leis an nGaeilge" which sent our native language scuttling west across the country to hang on, precariously to Atlantic rocks. It is at one, too, with the relative weakness of Irish intellectual enterprise as evidenced by our academics since independence: men and women who, in choosing themes for their books, judged wrongly that their minds, being Irish, were not such as could tackle England, Europe and the world.
Obviously, because this many-sided negative valuation of Irish self and circumstance is a learned thing - self-deprecation does not come naturally to human beings - it can, and ought to be, educated away. That, in turn, raises the question of why this has not happened in the 80-odd years since political independence. I would be interested in hearing what people think - Yours, etc.,
DESMOND FENNELL, Parson Court, Maynooth, Co Kildare.