WORLD VIEW/By Paul Gillespie: The launch of an exhibition devoted to Irish soldiers and civilians in the service of the Hapsburg empire from 1618-1918 in the National Museum this week reminds us that there is an historical tradition of Irish cultural and social integration in Europe which long predates the European Union.
Making this point in an essay on the subject coinciding with the exhibition*, Dr Declan Downey of UCD writes that "émigré success in integrating with the host society may be measured by: the ability to absorb its culture; to acquire wealth and honours; to contribute to its cultural, professional, economic and political life; the capability to rise to the highest positions of state and yet to retain, in balance, a sense of one's own ethnic origin and identity." On all these criteria, the Irish made a remarkable contribution to their host societies in Austria, Spain and France. The multinational character of the Hapsburg empire meant it was hospitable to the advancement of such gifted foreigners from a displaced Catholic Irish aristocracy, many of whom had fled Ireland after the Battle of Kinsale, a pattern that continued throughout the following two centuries, driven by the Penal Laws and the Protestant Ascendancy. They participated in the Thirty Year War (1618-1648) on the Catholic side, reminding us that we can never separate Irish or British history from European history in the 17th and 18th centuries - nor in any other centuries.
A list of officers of probable Irish origin in the imperial army from 1630-1830 runs to 1,500 individuals.
Among this émigré elite, seven were awarded the Order of the Golden Fleece, the most exclusive chivalric honour in Europe. Their names reveal some of the most prominent families involved: Franz Taaffe (1694), Franz Wenzel Wallis von Carrighmain (1751), Maximilian Ulysses von Browne (1757), Franz Moritz de Lacy (1766), Joseph O'Donnell (1810), Laval Nugent (1852) and Eduard Taaffe (1878).
Other prominent names include Kavanaghs, Butlers, Plunketts, McGuires, Barrys, Bradys, Banfields, Hamiltons and Forbes.
A revealing cameo from the 1780s tells how the Irish tenor Michael Kelly met a group of generals with Emperor Joseph II including Generals O'Donnell and Kavanagh, after being introduced to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Count Franz-Moritz de Lacy. One of them said something to him in Irish which he did not understand. "The Emperor turned quickly on me, and said: 'What? O'Kelly, don't you speak the language of your country?' - I replied, 'please your Majesty, no one but the lower orders of Irish people speak Irish.' The Emperor laughed loudly. The impropriety of the remark, made before two Milesian Generals, in an instant flashed into my mind. I could have bit my tongue off." The reference to Milesian generals is to the ancient belief that the Gaelic Irish were descended from the Iberian prince Milesius or Mil, who led them from northern Spain to settle in Ireland, naming the country Éire in honour of the goddess Éirú.
The Book of Invasions from the 12th century speaks of 54 people making that first voyage, including the goddess Cessair, her father Bith, her brother Ladra, the helmsman Fintan and 50 maidens, one from every nation of the earth.
Thus it makes no sense to speak of a single Irish identity or to separate it from European culture. Even the myths of origin are concerned directly with inter-cultural relations. The Irish-Austrian connection is a useful reminder that hybridity and heterogeneity characterise Ireland's identities as well as those of other European nations. Their histories are interconnected and overlapping. They are, of course, also subject to change, development and breakdown, which can obscure previous links.
So it has been with the Irish military tradition in Austria, which was shattered by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. But connections were renewed after Irish independence with many of the new states arising from that collapse in the 1920s, only to disappear again with Nazism. Ireland's vote in the second Nice referendum has opened up the prospect of renewing the links in the context of EU enlargement. It will fall to the Irish EU presidency to welcome the newcomers on January 1st, 2004.
The traditional migration from Ireland to the Austrian imperial service waned in the 19th century as anti-Catholic legislation was repealed. The United States, Britain, Canada and Australia replaced Europe as favoured destinations. But contacts with Austria continued strongly through the families mentioned. In this century, they have been impressively supplemented by movements of people, ideas and goods both ways, as is amply and entertainingly documented in this book. Douglas O'Donell, who came from Vienna for the opening of this exhibition, recalled his father's travels around Donegal with Peadar O'Donnell - "the count and the communist".
The cultural and literary interaction should not be overlooked. James Joyce lived in Trieste from 1904-1915, where he was exposed to the multiculturalism of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which is central to his own accounts of hybrid identities. One of its military attaches reported from Switzerland in 1916, where Joyce had fled the first World War to live in Zurich, that "he is an honest man and seems to be starvingafter the war he hopes to return to Austria", of which he speaks "with esteem and admiration". That was not possible after the Italians took the city and imposed their own irredentist nationalism.
Teachers of continental languages and culture in Ireland report a distinct waning of interest in their subjects over recent years, as the predominance of the English language and Anglo-American popular culture have been reinforced here. The benefit of having two languages, English and Irish, has not been turned to its potential advantage of facilitating a third or fourth one.
That puts Ireland at a distinct disadvantage in the enlarging Europe. Most young people in the new EU member-states speak a second or third language in addition to that of their own country, which makes them more similar to the original six EEC states than the nine which have since joined. Their linguistic diversity recalls that of the Wild Geese, which another generation of migrating Irish could emulate with benefit, at least in respect of contemporary European social and cultural integration.
• "Wild Geese and the double-headed eagle: Irish integration in Austria c.1630-c.1918", in Paul Leifer and Eda Sagarra, eds., Austro-Irish Links through the Centuries, Vienna, 2002.