Taoiseach Michaél Martin had a bit of a “planes, trains and automobiles” episode getting to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
His Government jet was due to land at the nearby city of St Gallen late on Wednesday but was rerouted to Zurich at the last minute. That diversion was already going to make him late for IDA Ireland’s dinner where he was due to deliver the keynote address to about 35 global chief executives.But his travel woes were only just beginning.
On the journey from Zurich to Davos, his car hit heavy traffic and eventually total gridlock because of a fire. In the end, he and his adviser decided to walk the last bit in sub-zero temperatures. But even this mode of transport was hampered when they were forced to wait at a junction for Donald Trump’s motorcade to pass.
He arrived at Hotel Grischa for the IDA gig frozen and 90 minutes late for his scheduled address.
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Martin, however, turned his arduous trek into his opening anecdote, saying he was currently reading The Winter Warriors, Olivier Norek’s book about how the Finns fought off the Soviets during the second World War, and how his trudge through the snow and ice to get there had given him a newfound respect for the hardships the Finnish soldiers faced.
Norek apparently went to extremes to research his book, spending time, reportedly 100 days, in Finland’s frozen forests where temperatures regularly drop to -40 degrees during the winter.
The book, a fictionalised account of the war, seems to have been prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. There are striking similarities between the two wars: the Soviet Union engineered an attack on themselves to justify the invasion and had expectations it would overrun Finland, one 50th of its size, in a matter of weeks.
[ ‘Old Cold War fears have returned’: An Irishman on the Finnish-Russian borderOpens in new window ]
The Winter War, as it was known, lasted three months and ended with Finland ceding territory but the Finnish soldiers fought off the initial invasion valiantly, inflicting heavy casualties on the Soviet side, prompting Moscow to reduce its strategic objectives.
Martin was one of several EU leaders to lament how Trump’s Greenland gambit overshadowed a much more pressing security issue for Europe – Russia’s ongoing assault on Ukraine – at this year’s World Economic Forum.
