Ireland joined the European Economic Community 50 years ago, in 1973. Its reach across Europe, however, spans millennia. This was the key take-away from a special conference and exhibit organised at the EUI to celebrate Ireland’s 50th anniversary of becoming a member of the European Union.
The event was a joint initiative of Ireland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by Ireland’s Ambassador to Italy Patricia O’Brien, and the Historical Archives of the European Union, with members of the EUI’s Irish community, led by Thomas Bourke and Mary Carr.
Ambassador O’Brien and EUI President Professor Renaud Dehousse welcomed more than 50 guests to the conference, which included a lecture by Professor Damian Bracken from the University of Cork, and talks by EUI Professors Lucy Riall and Claire Kilpatrick. Three Irish researchers, Eoghan Hussey, Mustapha Kokumo, and Max Bradley, described their dissertation projects and life as researchers at the EUI.
Professor Bracken, an expert in the history of antique and medieval Ireland and Europe, considered the role of Irish scholars and evangelisers whose thinking encompassed totius Europae, the ‘whole of Europe.’ He looked especially at the works and careers of Columbanus of Bobbio and Donatus of Fiesole, two Irish missionaries whose travels, teachings and writings have been enshrined from northern Europe to the south of Italy.
Professor Riall instead brought listeners to the last century, pointing out Ireland’s evolution and acumen in successfully developing its own foreign policy, separate from the United Kingdom. She also outlined why Ireland’s celebration of its membership in the EU is especially joyful. “The 20th century—the fifty years between 1922 and 1972”, she explained, “was a dark time: a period of civil war, of long decolonisation, of deep cultural and economic isolation.” With general enthusiasm from the start, and the “exceptional” benefits the country has wrought from its membership in the EEC and now EU, the Irish are “great Europeans.”
Professor Kilpatrick explored Irish-EU relations from the perspective of Northern Ireland and Brexit. While Northern Ireland persistently created problems for the pursuit of more extreme forms of Brexit, resulting most recently in the Windsor Framework, Brexit has further destabilized Northern Ireland. Ireland played a highly significant role as a well-prepared ideas entrepreneur post-Brexit, creating and communicating a clear position to the EU its role as a Northern Irish ‘peacebuilder’.
Following Irish songs performed by David Scott and Vittoria Colonna, Ambassador O’Brien and Professor Dehousse inaugurated ‘Ireland in Europe.’ The travelling exhibit of 16 panels, curated by Professor Bracken and installed for the occasion at the Badia Fiesolana, was flanked by a selection of historic documents and photographs from the HAEU illustrating Ireland’s presence in the EU, as well as at the EUI.
The selected archival documents are now on display in the Alcide de Gasperi room at the Historical Archives.
Photo: Ireland's Ambassador to Italy Patricia O'Brien spoke at the 27 September conference 'Ireland in Europe'.