IS IRELAND closer to Boston or to Berlin?
That’s a question that used to fascinate political commentators and culture warriors.
Do we tend to identify culturally more with the United States or with Europe? And where would our best interests lie anyway?
It is not a question that would have bothered people much when I was young for it was obvious that our natural sympathies were more with America.
We watched American soaps and westerns on TV. Berlin was remote and dangerous, a divided city where people spoke a different language and where secret agents skulked in dark alleys.
Pubs in Donegal had a portrait of John F Kennedy on the wall.
Our European link was Rome because of the pre-eminence of the Catholic Church and our reverence for the Pope. Some of our young priests had been trained there.
Culturally we have changed but so also have Boston and Berlin.
American culture has washed over the world and changed Germany as much as it has changed Ireland, though perhaps Germany, with a strong native language, has held more firmly onto an indigenous culture.
Still, if an American, a German and an Irishman walked into a bar you would not be able to tell which was which, by appearance anyway.
My own first dealings with Americans and Germans were not in their own countries but in Ireland where they came as tourists to marvel at what they took for our rustic simplicity. The cheek of it!
In recent years Germany has been an important ally as a partner in the European Union.
A united Germany at the heart of the EU stood up for Ireland when Britain decided to withdraw and created all kinds of complications for us.
And cheap flights and the opening up of eastern Europe have turned a wariness of the former communist bloc into a fondness for city breaks in Prague and Budapest as well as Berlin.
I think a prejudice about Eastern Europe, before it opened up, was that it was politically toxic and culturally salacious.
Those commies with their free love might entrap you into spying for them by sending your way some sultry young woman in black leather.
Whereas Boston was Catholic, like home and it was full of people with familiar Irish names.
Europe was interesting but it didn’t have enticing job prospects, and even if it had you’d have to learn another language to thrive. It wouldn’t even be second choice to America. That was, and still is, Australia.
The real question at the heart of these speculations was about Ireland’s place in the world.
Keen to be friendly and to trade with everybody, we stayed out of foreign wars unless to provide peace keeping forces.
While Britain boasted a special relationship with the US, when Biden came here two years ago the media smirked at the obvious fact that Ireland’s relationship was even more special still.
Now the time for gloating is past and new relationships have to be forged with a new president.
Things change very quickly.
Ireland is wondering if President Trump will impose trade tariffs on Ireland and urge American companies to withdraw from an Irish economy that is highly dependent on them.
Every March, around St Patrick’s Day, the Taoiseach travels to the States to present the president with a bowl of shamrock.
Now some are wondering if Trump will continue to honour that tradition.
Even some Irish people are speculating - perhaps hoping - that he won’t.
Former Justice, Equality and Defence Minister, Alan Shatter recently posted on X: ’Trump can’t ignore Ireland’s hostility towards Israel. St Patricks Day White House & Washington events should not be business as usual.’
He is among many who are annoyed at Ireland having recognised a Palestinian state and accepted an obligation from the International Criminal Court to arrest alleged war criminals should they land in Ireland.
The chief target of that obligation in the public mind is Benjamin Netanyahu but it also applies to that other yahoo, Vladimir Putin.
Some in Ireland believe that President Higgins and the government, expressing sympathies for the Palestinians, have closed their hearts to the suffering of Israelis.
Shatter also wrote that the discussion of whether we are closer to Boston or Berlin is superseded by another relationship.
He wrote: ‘Today there is validity in discussing is Ireland’s government closer to Tehran than Washington?’
A fine novelist, Shatter might have phrased that a little better. And it is bizarre nonsense.
As regards Boston and Berlin, Ireland has never had to make a serious choice between the two and yet we appear to be entering a new era of increased tension between America and Europe stirred up by Trump.
Trump pays scant regard to diplomatic protocols and cultural sensitivities when coveting Greenland, arguing over NATO contributions and threatening to sideline Europe in his efforts to end the war in Ukraine on terms acceptable to Putin.
Decisions on our relevance will be made by those powers, not by us.
We might end up closer to Berlin, together appalled at how little we have been taken into account.
