It hardly matches the stereotype of the foreign correspondent (linen suit, gin at six, roof-fan slapping in time to the typewriter keys) but the number of foreign journalists earning a living from Ireland is growing fast. By now, there are about 50, from all over the world. Their presence illustrates a change in the world's attitude to Ireland - not just mists and reels, but success, big time.
Some foreign correspondents are posted here by their newspapers, others carve out a living as "stringers", sending reports from Ireland to a number of outlets. Many, especially those working for British newspapers, are Irish, often filling Irish editions in an effort to cultivate an Irish readership.
One of the latest to arrive in Dublin is Kevin Cullen, who has just opened the Boston Globe's bureau in the capital. He is no stranger to Ireland - he has been covering Irish stories for 10 years, making frequent visits, each a few weeks long. Kevin is considered the most informed American journalist on Irish affairs: he speaks of major players in the North with an easy familiarity.
His approach differed from that of the London bureaus of the American newspapers, he says, in that they were involved in the "politics of the latest atrocity". Cullen, on the other hand, would arrive weeks afterwards, talk to people and get the human story. Despite living thousands of miles across the Atlantic, he was spending more time in contact with his subjects than those living a few hundred miles away in London.
It is almost axiomatic for journalists that you know you are probably getting it right when both sides accuse you of bias. In Boston, Cullen has been accused of being an IRA fellow-traveller as well as of being a member of British intelligence. He has written stories that underlined unionist resolve and explained their position, as well as stories about the nationalist community.
Over the years, the number of stories he has sent back to the Globe about the South slowly increased. By the 1990s, his coverage was 50/50 North and South. If he had concentrated on Northern Ireland solely, he says, he would have missed the massive changes in society south of the Border, the economic story and the growth in the economy and the growing secularisation.
He can justify a full-time bureau in Dublin: "Ireland is the only international story that is local in Boston. Half of the US companies operating in Ireland have New England roots. Look at cultural links, look at Angela's Ashes, Riverdance and ancestry. Senator George Mitchell is a Red Sox fan."
So many Irish stories have resonances in Boston. The crisis in the Catholic church and paedophile priests, for instance. Even road accidents can be stories in Boston. Cullen recalls the death in Ireland of a couple from Boston. It was a small story here, but for Boston readers it was a tragedy of the diaspora. The couple had met in Boston. The woman was from Galway, the man Boston-born, but his father had emigrated from the same townland as the woman a generation earlier. In Boston that story meant a great deal to many people.
Newspapers need reporters who understand the culture of their readers, Cullen says, pointing out that only a Bostonian would have recognised the importance of that story.
Another American foreign correspondent is James Clarity, who files stories for the New York Times, for which he worked for 31 years before moving to Dublin seven years ago. When he left New York, he was assistant foreign editor and had worked in Paris, Moscow, the Middle East, Iran - during the time of the Shah - and in Vietnam towards the end of the war. In proportion to population, Ireland comes second to Israel in the pages of the New York Times, he says. The New York Times coverage of the North, he says, was "a numbers game" - the story only got written when there were about six dead. While there were many fine reporters, the perception was wrong, he explains. There was an appearance that readers were getting a British view only.
The South, meanwhile, was only covered when there was an election. Now the New York Times is publishing about two stories a week from Ireland - on a whole range of subjects. John Murray Brown works for the Financial Times. He arrived here in 1994 and was thrown into covering the cease-fire before he knew anything about the country, having arrived in Belfast straight from his previous posting in Turkey.
He had only applied for the Dublin post to convince the Financial Times did not want to stay in Istanbul for ever life had been getting "a little bit uncomfortable" with the Turkish authorities. Murray Brown has always worked abroad, beginning his career by "rolling up in East Africa" working for a hippie outfit planting trees in the desert. He covered a coup in Khartoum for the FT and wrote a piece on the governor of the Sudanese Central Bank and how he was going to apply Islamic banking practices. The African editor arrived, offered him a stringer position with the FT and left him a bright blue Olivetti typewriter. He covered Sudan, Ethiopia and Chad. He later moved to Indonesia and then spent four years in turkey.
Some 80 per cent of Murray Brown's coverage is about Northern Ireland. He also writes corporate material and company profiles. He wants to write more about the Irish economy, but is tied up with Northern Ireland. The complexity of covering Ireland really should justify a second correspondent, he suggests.
He finds Ireland disarming. It is so close to home, with the same language and with so many cultural overlaps, but is very different in so many ways. He is frequently surprised at linguistic differences and sensitivities. He also finds the Irish preoccupied with Britain, while Britain has little idea of Ireland. For Murray Brown, life in Ireland is complicated by the fact that so much of his coverage is about Anglo-Irish relations, where he might see the story as an Irish one. Because of the stance of the FT, he is writing both a British story, about Northern Ireland, as well as a European story, about Ireland - for a newspaper that views itself as a European newspaper. To this end, he has filed statements from Gerry Adams from spots as diverse as company board rooms in Kerry, or garage forecourts in Mayo.
Dr Martin Alioth sends daily reports to German language newspapers and radio stations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He is a Swiss academic who in 1984, with his wife, decided to settle in Ireland and change careers.
He contributes regularly to Neue Zurcher Zeitung in Switzerland, Der Standard in Austria, Tagesspiegel in Berlin, ARD German Radio, Deutshlandradio and Radio DRS in Switzerland and ORF in Austria.
He says there is a huge interest in Ireland within the Germanspeaking countries. In Germany, the interest is a romantic one, while in Switzerland and Austria the interest is in another small, neutral European state.
From his home in Co Meath, Alioth is the only full-time journalist informing Germany - Europe's most important economy - about this country, in terms the Germans understand. Like Cullen and Clarity, he believes it is important to understand the culture of the readers and listeners, knowing what to explain and what can be taken for granted.
It took Alioth a long time to interest the German media in Ireland's economic growth. He understood the reluctance - a booming economy with amazing growth did not fit the German view of Ireland. It was a view fuelled by the writer, Heinrich Boll in the 1950s and more recently by the export of Irish music.
"There is a craze in Germany for Irish folk music, which is all about poverty and Republicanism," he adds. "That cultural export reinforced the stereotype."
Michael Foley is media correspondent of the Irish Times
