Irish Examiner view: Mark Carney shows what it is to be a true statesman

Canadian prime minister's Davos speech may prove to be a highly influential moment

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney's speech was a 2,100-word deconstruction of US president Donald Trump's actions. File picture: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press/AP

These are the times, wrote Thomas Paine some 250 years ago, that try our souls.

On that occasion, he was protesting against the imperial swagger of an established superpower attempting to crush the fledgeling hopes for freedom of a people seeking nationhood.