‘We lost our spirit and our way’

Ireland might have avoided the economic collapse if it had retained some of the cultural and political spirit that infused the fight for independence, President Michael D Higgins has suggested.

Instead, the country lost connection with that spirit and was devoid of an “ethical brake” when the Celtic Tiger arrived.

Mr Higgins was delivering a keynote address at the London School of Economics last night during his first official overseas visit as President.

He said that “in so many ways the tragedy of modern Ireland’s recent difficulties” was the failure to achieve a flourishing economy after throwing off its colonial shackles.

“[Ireland] was the first English-speaking country to decolonise, to walk in darkness down what would become a better-lit road.

“The problem for Ireland was the failure to achieve economic lift-off at the same moment as soon after.

“By the time the more recent economic boom began, leaders and people had all but lost connection with the cultural and political elements of national revival which might, if retained, have provided an ethical brake, made a critique that would have constituted the regulation that was needed.”

Earlier in the day, Mr Higgins began his two-day visit to the city by attending a reception at the London Irish Centre in Camden, where he praised the role played by the Irish in Britain through the centuries.

Mr Higgins will today visit the Olympic Park amid other engagements before tonight attending a performance of Seán O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock at the Lyttelton Theatre.