Irish Examiner view: Reaching outward is in the Irish nature

National Museum exhibition on connections between Ireland and St Gall shows while the drive by extremists to gaze within might be appealing in a dangerous world, we have always gained more by gazing without

Patrick O’Donovan, Karin Keller-Sutter, and Maeve Sikora at the St Gall exhibition at the National Museum. Picture: Julien Behal

In an era when the most powerful country on Earth seems hellbent on retreating inwardly, both politically and economically, where it is transforming into an isolationist nation courting and flirting with the dangers of extremism and fascism, it might behoove us to recall how our little island cast its net out into the wider world at a time when our island was typically considered the ends of the Earth.

One of the great tragedies of politics is where leaders only concern themselves with the internal, rather than seeing their nation as part of a greater network.

No nation exists in isolation. We are all connected by our humanity and the bonds of that humanity. Unfortunately, it would seem this has been forgotten, or possibly purposefully neglected. Our failure to condemn injustice is a stain on our humanity. It destructively erodes those bonds that make us human, bonds which are more obvious when we look at how culture, literature, and heritage can actually bring people together more than push them apart. When we no longer see the humanity in another face, child, or even those who shun others, we lose something of ourselves.

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Ireland, as an island, stands geographically at the periphery of Europe. We have often been modest in number, and often quite poor, yet for more than 1,500 years our heritage, culture, and customs stretch across the world in a far-reaching network.

Our ways have been captured in our literature, our drive for self-improvement, and our resistance of injustices in the world. Heritage and what it means to belong are essential to us as people. After all, our sense of belonging has often been met with rejection in times where we cast that metaphorical net into the world, trying desperately to find a new home.

We might now consider it “soft power”, though to be fair, our first soft power ambassadors, the early Christian monks, didn’t see themselves as representing a state. Indeed, some of them were travelling abroad as a sort of pilgrimage, ending up halfway across the continent in what seems to us like the most random of places.

We see this in the new exhibition at the National Museum, focusing on the connections between Ireland and the Swiss city of St Gall, which (perhaps bizarrely) was founded in the 600s by an Irish missionary. It sounds like the beginnings of the meme whereby, wherever you go on Earth, you’ll find somebody in a GAA jersey.

As well as artefacts, the exhibition will feature a range of manuscripts penned by Irish monks or monks under their tutelage, many of which are on loan from St Gall.

As we noted in our report on the opening of the exhibition: “The manuscripts trace the journeys of Irish monks who travelled across Europe in search of exile, refuge, and learning — bringing with them Ireland’s unique artistic and scholarly traditions.”

So while the drive by extremists to gaze within might be appealing in a dangerous and chaotic world, we should always remember that we as a species have always gained more by gazing without.

Rip-off republic tag sad but true

Ireland has been called a rip-off republic for more years than we would like to count, and yet the annual hotel price madness for 2026 has already kicked off, 12 months out.

Fans of Metallica who were lucky enough to get tickets for their two concerts in the Aviva Stadium in June 2026 — and the tickets, which were for both shows, ranged from over €100 for standing to well over €3,000 to be in the middle of the stage — immediately found that hotel rooms for the dates in question were already reaching astronomical prices.

James Hetfield of Metallica, who play at the Aviva next June. Picture: Ethan Miller/Getty

We’ve been here before, with Taylor Swift, and indeed any major star or group to make it to these shores for a stadium event. Not that it’s the musicians’ or promoters’ fault — as it is, Ireland is an expensive place for them to perform, and a band that might easily perform four huge concerts in Britain might only be able to do one here.

None of which really offers much solace to the fans going to Dublin, or the tourists who would otherwise go there but find hotel prices to be hotter than the summer sun.

We are going beyond simple supply and demand, and dancing through exploitation territory. And it’s a dance we do on an annual basis without anybody in Government really doing anything of substance.

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And while, yes, we live in a country filled with small businesses that are the backbone of the economy and, yes, all companies need to turn a profit in order to survive, the darker side is that we need to ask how many homeless families or refugees might be turned out of their accommodation just to turn a quick buck.

Populist fires take time to extinguish

While it has been positive to see a far-right path to power curbed in elections in France, Germany, and Romania, among others (and the far right barely made a dent in our own election), that doesn’t mean anybody who believes in liberal democracy or a centrist society can take anything for granted.

America, despite the string of court defeats for the Trump administration and its leader’s chaotic approach to everything, is still staunchly extremist. Whether the midterm elections change anything remains to be seen, and there’s a lot of chaos to come between now and then.

Closer to home, Portugal’s far-right party Chega scored so many gains in the recent elections that it is now the biggest opposition party. Founded only six years ago, it has touted stronger immigration controls and targeted the country’s Roma population while also advocating chemical castration for paedophiles. While the centrist Democratic Alliance still took the most seats, Chega, like many populist parties, capitalised on younger voters as well as a general air of dissatisfaction.

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While it can be argued that populists are better at finding problems than solutions, we’ve seen in the US that, once in government, they can set everything ablaze. And fires like that take a long time to extinguish, if ever.