Ireland and Korea’s historical parallels echo throughout landmark Irish visit

To reach President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office you drive through the parkland of a large defence ministry campus to the brand new 10-storey building he moved into last May. The new presidential office is next to a United States army garrison and on his desk is a replica of Harry Truman’s sign saying The Buck Stops Here.

After Yoon’s meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on Friday, both leaders stressed the economic opportunities promised by closer links between South Korea and Ireland. And a primary purpose of the three-day trade mission to Seoul was winning more business for Irish companies.

Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue was able to claim some progress with parliamentarians in Seoul towards opening the Korean market to Irish beef, and Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris promoted Irish universities and language schools. Enterprise minister Simon Coveney announced some eye-catching deals between Irish and Korean companies, including one to create Europe’s first fuel cell-powered data centre.

But the Taoiseach’s events in Korea were more reflective, under the shadow of Korea’s recent history and its resonances with Ireland’s. During his visit to the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between North Korea and South Korea, Varadkar noted how much careful effort went into preventing confrontation.

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“A huge amount of what happens there is to avoid conflict, beginning by accident or by misunderstanding. And we know how that’s happened in history where shots get fired and it leads to a conflict that might have otherwise been avoided,” he said.

The mood was sombre too on Friday morning when the Taoiseach visited a memorial to more than 150 Irishmen who died in the Korean War that ended 70 years ago. Their sacrifice, mostly in British regiments, is part of a narrow thread of history and culture that links these two countries on opposite sides of the world.

Once known as the Ireland of Asia, Korea saw in the early 20th century parallels between its colonial experience under Japan and Ireland’s under Britain. More recently the two countries are among a handful in the world to shoot from a low base into the high-income bracket within a few decades.

Yoon congratulated the Taoiseach on the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement but he has overseen a retreat from a policy of engagement with North Korea to take a more confrontational approach. And even as the Taoiseach spoke of peace and the hope Northern Ireland’s experience represented, he was brought back again and again in Korea to the pity of war in Ukraine and Gaza in a world where the most transgressive act is to call for peace.