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Behind recent failures of Ireland's key establishments lurks one primary fear: that of autonomous thinking, writes Elaine Byrne 

'THE LONGER I live, the more I think; and the more I think for myself." When Conor Cruise O'Brien wrote those words in his 1984 Irish Times column, he could have been referring to the intellectual development of the Irish nation. O'Brien turned accepted norms on their head and pioneered new ways of thinking. This made him intellectually dangerous to established consensuses on traditional nationalism and political ethics.