Irish StudiesIn 2004, when this book was in gestation, a globalisation index showed Ireland, for the third year in a row, as the most globalised nation in the world. It was against this background that a group of Irish and American intellectuals gathered at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, for a conference organised by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, to reflect on the journey that Ireland had travelled in the modern world.
The generous hospitality and accommodation over a number of days allowed for the presentation of 10 major papers to which the varied participants responded.
Their work has been brought together by an enthusiastic editor who clearly relished the project. A CD is provided with the book. This was not another navel- gazing exercise measuring the width of the stripes on the back of the Celtic Tiger, although sometimes the obsession with the peace process in the North gets in the way of what Ireland thinks of itself now, at the beginning of the 21st century.
It is ironic that Ireland, one of the last nations in Europe to get its national independence from a major colonial power, is among the first to have that national identity challenged by the forces of globalisation. If the characteristics of the nation state were, classically, your own currency, customs barriers on the frontier, your own language and an independent policy, then Ireland has removed some of these and abandoned others, consciously or unconsciously. Yet now we are more prosperous than ever before and our national reach is truly worldwide. The relationship between the island of Ireland and the Irish diaspora is a recurring theme that weaves its way through the diverse narrative of this fascinating book.
The nation state is a relatively recent modern political construct, yet Italy existed in the minds of most Europeans for centuries before 1859 when the legal state emerged. Likewise, Germany existed before the arrival of chancellor Bismarck of Prussia gave it concrete form in 1871. Ireland was itself the product of a sustained process of creation as Declan Kiberd has brilliantly illustrated in his book Inventing Ireland. The quest for national identity in a changing world is not new. Likewise, the processes of globalisation have been here before. Back in the middle of the 19th century, the Gold Standard, the steam engine and the telegraph machine transformed the world in a way never previously seen. That era of globalisation ended brutally in August 1914 and did not fully resume until the autumn of 1989 with the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Ireland's population peaked at 8.5 million in the middle of the 19th century, as nearly every school child will know. What was new to me was that, from 1600 to 2000, eight million people emigrated from Ireland to Britain, mainland Europe, North America and beyond. That voyage of humanity, not all of it involuntary or destitute, has created a diaspora that continues to require a dialogue between itself and the home country. Much, but not all, of the discourse in Charlottesville was concerned with this topic.
The question of Irish identity remains, and the attempt to find new answers in our modern world continues. If the traditional props to national identity and self-awareness are being removed or slowly disappear, how we will know who we are in the future? For some, this voyage into the unknown is risky and threatening. In addition, it is compounded by the arrival on our shores of a new wave of immigrants. As one contribution succinctly points out they are not the first. In fact, Ireland's history has been strongly influenced by the waves of migration in both directions that have influenced the social composition of the island and its consequent politics.
HOWEVER, THIS IS an incomplete work as far as I am concerned. While it is well constructed, the various and diverse contributions are too concerned with the past rather than the future. The title is therefore a misnomer. "Remembering Ireland in all its diversity and its unwritten history" might better convey the theme of the book.
The nation state can no longer itself address all the concerns of our people and planet. People of different nationalities have to find ways of talking to each other and empowering their representatives to have the political authority, where appropriate, to negotiate on their behalf.
Glaringly absent from this dialogue is any substantial recognition of Ireland's experience within our 34-year membership of the European Union. But more than that is the failure to recognise the unique development of the nation state within a new framework of pooled sovereignty and structured inter-governmentalism - the unique characteristic of the European Union.
Ireland has benefited immensely from being amongst the most globalised countries in the world. So too did Argentina in the last century. But when the nation state failed to manage the first generation of globalisation, Argentina, in particular, went back from the first world to the third world. A vibrant Irish identity requires a self-confident dialogue with itself and its diaspora. The presumption of a harmonious and peaceful process of globalisation to facilitate that is perhaps a bit self-indulgent. Sadly, this book seems to fall into that trap.
Ruairi Quinn is a Labour Party TD
Re-imagining Ireland: How a Storied Island is Transforming its Politics, Economy, Religious Life and Culture for the 21st Century Edited by Andrew Higgins Wyndham University of Virginia Press, 288pp. $34.95