Speech by Taoiseach Micheál Martin at Dermot Keogh Memorial Lecture, UCC Friday 12 December

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It is a great honour to have been invited to give the first Dermot Keogh Memorial Lecture and later this evening to launch a book which includes the final entries on his remarkable publication list.

Dermot Keogh was, by any measure, one of the most important historians of modern Ireland – so it is absolutely fitting that he will be remembered through an annual lecture.

This is also very personal, as Dermot was a generous and profoundly important mentor to me both as a student and in the years afterwards.

Dermot Keogh was a pioneer.

He helped to create and lead the exploration of wide swaths of the history of our country.

As a lecturer and supervisor, he inspired new generations.

As a researcher, he created a body of work which changed the way we see some of the most important issues of the last century.

As a colleague, and as an academic leader, he was tireless in helping others and promoting projects designed to have a lasting impact.

He was a unique and inspiring person to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude.

Throughout his life he was motivated a deep desire to understand the development of his country and the wider world during a turbulent 20th Century. He passed this passion on to countless others.

His early studies were in UCD, after which he took what was then a very common route of not going straight into academia, working in the Irish Press and then RTÉ. This experience in journalism informed his ability to communicate his ideas and, while he respected the importance of high-quality journalism, he believed we have a duty to go beyond short-term sources when seeking to draw historical conclusions.

For Dermot, history should never be just longer-form journalism. It had to embrace more difficult standards in both research and writing. Judgmental phrases were to be avoided, and you must always give evidence of considering different opinions before offering your own.

The attraction of history and research was always there for him – and true to his spirit he chose to enrol for a doctorate in the European University Institute in Florence.

Today the E.U.I. is one of the most prestigious research universities in the world, but then it was still new – and Dermot achieved the remarkable distinction of being the first person to be awarded a doctorate in history from the university.

After Italy he began his transformative work here in Cork.

I had the exceptional good fortune to be one of his early research students.

To have Dermot Keogh as your supervisor was to learn at the feet of someone who believed in the central role of rigorous research in history. The last thing he would accept was just repeating areas which had already been covered. He was not interested in simply hearing back what he or others had published.

He wanted new sources and new ideas. He wanted us to challenge him and to challenge ourselves. As long as they were properly backed up by the sources, he also actively supported students disagreeing with him.

His own research quickly began to show a remarkable breadth. Within this can be seen a consistent thread in the search for understanding of how Irish statehood and society evolved both internally and in relation to Europe and the wider world.

Not all historical works are created equally or to the same standards. There are deep debates about methodologies and the role of the historian. Where Dermot stood on this was absolutely clear.

His commitment was too rigorous, source-based, empirical history.

He believed in the sort of history which seeks to operate outside of an inflexible ideological or theoretical framing, and which believes that there are facts which we should seek to find. It is history where you do not start the research already knowing what you will write. History which is focused on exploration rather than advocacy.

It is the type of history which seeks to lay out enough information that the reader can challenge the author’s conclusions – history which isn’t seeking conformity, but which empowers people to engage in further debate.

This is reflected throughout the wide body of work published by Dermot.

It is important to say, that in an era where quantity can often take precedence over quality in academic publications, a Dermot Keogh article or book always addressed an issue of importance and was written to the highest standards.

Dermot’s impact remains as important as ever in relation to the history of labour, religious minorities, politics, the constitution and, most of all, international relations.

Later this evening we are launching the final entries into his bibliography – a collective work which he initiated and which includes two chapters contributed by him.

In these pages we again see his clarity of expression, the range of his research and his tireless seeking for new perspectives.

In giving a memorial lecture in his honour, the obvious question arise as to how can you possibly hope to talk about a personality and a scholar of such depth who has touched so many?

I think the best way to answer this is that for Dermot what always mattered most were the ideas that were illuminated by the details he uncovered through his research. He wanted us to not just know about events and personalities but to try and find wider significance. He did not want people to just repeat what he had said – but to engage with his themes, to challenge them and to seek new perspectives on them.

I think that the last thing he would want is a lecture focused on summarising his findings. He would want us to honour his work as a living and dynamic contribution to historical understanding and public debate.

So it is in that spirit that I would like to explore just three of the areas where Dermot made an important contribution to the study of Irish history and to look at them in the context of issues and challenges of today. They go to the heart of the evolution of Ireland over its century of statehood.

Specifically, I want to address:

• The importance of diplomacy and international relations in the achievement and evolution of Irish statehood;
• The role of Europe in Ireland’s development, and Ireland’s role in Europe’s development; and finally,
• The history of antisemitism in Ireland and its relevance to current debates.

Ireland’s Place in the World and Irish Statehood

1916 to 1923 are Ireland’s revolutionary years. This was also the most significant period of state formation in European history. For all states the motivations, tactics and ideologies which underpinned their foundation have a long-lasting importance. Many of these are shared between different states, but there are also major differences. It is only when you look in much greater detail at those years that you find the core of a distinct Irish international policy which remains important to this day.

The excellent collection which is being launched this evening brings the issue of international recognition from the margins of our discussions about our struggle for freedom and to the very centre.

The sacrifices, strategies, victories and tragedies of our revolution will always be looked at primarily through events which happened on this island. However, the development of one of the world’s longest continuous democracies cannot be understood without including within the story a diverse, creative and relentless push for international recognition as well as the promotion of a certain image of Irish national aspirations.

In fact, international and diplomatic factors are central to both Irish nationalism and wider Irish identity.

I believe that this is something which we find through nearly all periods of Irish history.

As the writer Milan Kundera wrote, it is only through engaging with wider international culture that small nations can survive. They cannot be defensive and inward-looking. They must reject the assertive, exclusionary nationalism found in much larger nations. Concepts like purity and separateness offer nothing positive to them.

I think that this is even more true for Ireland than it is for other nation states.

Attempts to coopt our national symbols in the service of political parties or anti-foreigner sentiment show a deep ignorance of history of Irish nationalism and republicanism.

There is effectively no way that a distinct Irish cultural identity could have survived without the networks which were developed throughout Europe in the early modern period. In seminaries, universities, armies and trades in various parts of Europe, Irish identity continued to evolve with modernising societies – and this, in turn, had a deep impact on the population which remained on this island.

This is the origins of the idea of a distinct Irish ‘Diaspora’ – people who leave but retain a lasting cultural attachment and significance to Ireland through many generations.

This is the mechanism through which the most peripheral community in Europe never stopped engagement with wider international developments.

We see this in 1798, with the emergence of an Irish republicanism to replace the lost Jacobite dream.

We see it in the enlightenment ideals of O’Connell – the person who is by some distance the Irish historical figure who had the deepest international impact.

We also see it in the internationalism of the founding document of our revolution, the Proclamation of 1916.

This is not found in talk of “gallant allies in Europe,” but in the appeal for solidarity between nations, for respecting diversity and for rights for all citizens.

It is not a statement of a cold, antiquarian nationalism, but emphatically an outward-looking and modern expression of the desire of a nation to stand with others.

It is a nationalism and republicanism which rejects demands of superiority and insists on respect and equality.

As different authors in this collection show, a commitment to diplomatic engagement with other countries should be seen as a core strand in the evolution of Irish statehood.

From the very first moments of the work of the independent Dáil Éireann Irish statehood was presented not simply as self-determination but also as part of a wish to make a contribution to the international community.

The records of the First Dáil, an assembly which conducted much of its business under a fierce urgency and uncertainty, show over 200 references to diplomatic representation, state recognition and international opinion.

There were indeed other countries for whom an international campaign for recognition was important, but none had the range and relentlessness of the work of the Irish revolutionaries.

This involved different elements of keeping Irish communities invested in the struggle, promoting Ireland’s message to the broad population and directly approaching governments. Of these three, the later was the least successful, but what the other activities achieved was showing that an independent Irish state was not only possible it was also committed to positive international relations.

A government in hiding, constantly moving between secret addresses and under threat of imminent arrest is not a government which can be expected to closely vet, plan and support a network of representatives, but what was achieved is remarkable.

As Dermot shows in one of his two contributions to the collection, the Dáil government went as far as to appoint a commercial consul in Genoa to set the foundations for future contacts and to promote trade.

That consul, Donal Hales, evolved from strictly trade concerns to trying to actively propagandise for Ireland at a time of great political upheaval in Italy. Hales was a unique character who also reflected the complexities of events back home. He was anti-Treaty even after the murder of his brother Deputy Seán Hales in December 1922 – an event which sparked vicious official reprisals.

What we see in different parts of the world is a new state which understands the idea that engaging with others is an essential part not just of achieving statehood but using that statehood for benefit of all of the people.

The first decades of an independent Irish state show a constant and indeed constantly increasing engagement in diplomacy and a commitment to multilateralism.

In his prophetic and powerful speeches to the League of Nations, Éamon de Valera’s consistent theme was that only through applying the rule of law to international relations could states thrive and destruction be avoided. While others were giving speeches empty of substance, he spoke of Ireland’s belief in cooperation and solidarity – fearlessly calling-out the behaviour of larger countries and their drift towards war.

When you look at this, and the principles which underpinned the international dimension of the Irish revolution, you see the origins of a remarkable series of provisions in our constitution.

Written at a moment of rising crisis in the world, de Valera’s constitution is one of the oldest in the democratic world. It was the first adopted by a free referendum and is the only example of a revolutionary group adopting a constitution which reduced its powers.

In Article 29 it states very directly “Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality.”

It later states “Ireland accepts the generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States.”

These are words to be proud of, but they are also words to take the time to consider – because they are both a beacon and a challenge.

They remind us that to engage with others is to accept limits on your own behaviour and to seek progress through cooperation.

The vision of sovereignty of our revolutionary generation was one which saw sovereignty as something to be used positively – and which involved accepting reasonable limits.

As the great philosopher of liberty Isaiah Berlin put it seventy years ago, absolute sovereignty for the wolf can mean destruction for the sheep. Just as within society we must accept shared rules to function, the same is true for states.

Nations which want to secure progress are ones that embrace the restraints of international law.

Ireland’s commitment to strong connections with other countries isn’t some marginal concern. It was central to our statehood, and it remains central to our security and prosperity.

The founders of our state understood this, giving diplomacy a high level of time and resources in the middle of crisis.

This is a lesson which we should never forget.

Europe’s importance for Ireland – And Ireland’s Importance for Europe

When Dermot published his first book on Ireland and Europe, he was giving shape to an area which had been little studied.

Our relations with what we now call the European Union were still relatively young and many of the most important pillars of EU action were still being debated.

He wanted to show the scale of the issues which had to be addressed before Ireland could join and then work within a revolutionary project for shared progress.

It was for him, the next stage in how independent Ireland exercised its sovereignty to have a broad and deep engagement with other states.

There was nothing inevitable about either of us being offered membership of the European Economic Community or the Irish people voting to join. In fact, the main substantive debate in the decade before membership was whether Ireland was simply too poor to join a community of economically stronger nations.

I have always found it striking that the people who were most determined that we should join were the few members of our revolutionary generation who remained active in politics.

Having fought in the GPO as a teenager and been central to key moments in the development of independent Ireland, Seán Lemass was a sincere and tireless Irish republican. He fought and saw close friends and family die for the right to live under the tricolour – and when his career was drawing to an end, securing our place in a strong, rules-bound community of nations was, he believed, essential. It represented the final security our statehood needed.

The contrast with revolutionary nationalists in other countries is remarkable.

No one can seriously question the fact that our participation in the European Union has been a transformative and positive experience for Ireland. In spite of the many strands of euroscepticism which have always been well represented in academia, politics and the media, there is no work of substance which even tries to pretend that we would have been better off if we have gone our own way by rejecting membership in 1972.

Our referendum on joining the EEC was an act of popular sovereignty at its best.

The fearmongers, of whom there were many, claimed that Ireland would be a depopulated wasteland. A country where the only industry would be focused on maintaining the nuclear weapons and legions of foreign soldiers who they predicted would land within months of membership.

As is unfortunately nearly always the case, the referendum campaign was mostly focused on exaggerated charges and what we today call disinformation.

Yet ultimately it was an act of faith, one described by Taoiseach Jack Lynch as Europe having “offered us the hand of friendship” and participation in what he called “a great family of nations.”

But we must remember that the progress which was achieved was not inevitable – it came from a sustained commitment on behalf of Ireland to be a constructive, positive and active member of the Union.

We succeeded in critical negotiations through the decades because of the work we did and the fact that Ireland was understood to be committed to making the Union work.

Our governments have devoted enormous amounts of time to building relations with other countries, so that we understand their concerns and they understand ours. Just as importantly, we understand how often our interests are shared.

There are many international relations theorists who live a world full of people seeking to steal an advantage and to assert themselves. For Ireland, our most important international relations have prospered because our focus is always on seeking to minimise points of conflict and to reject the zero-sum framing of issues.

At political and diplomatic levels Ireland has worked to be a partner who can have a robust debate without losing respect or showboating in front of the media.

Researchers who have spent decades looking through the enormous body of official papers about Ireland’s relations with Europe, have been unanimous in pointing to the professionalism and the desire to be constructive which has defined our work in Europe.

This has been particularly the case during times when we have held the Presidency of the Council. The very first Council was held in Dublin and next year we will again take this leadership role. The preparations and detailed background work is already well underway, and I am determined that Ireland will again show its ability to achieve breakthroughs on the biggest priorities.

However, it is also important to say this is a unique moment in the Union’s history. It faces genuinely dramatic challenges both within the Union and from others who wish to undermine it.

This is not a time when Ireland can stand on the sidelines hoping that things will turn out alright. We have to be absolutely clear that we stand on the side of a strong Union which asserts its values and redoubles its commitment to cooperation and solidarity between countries.

Ireland’s position on major debates has evolved very significantly in the last few years and it will continue to evolve.

At Council meetings and in every other forum, I have made it clear that my government believes that there is a need for greater urgency and ambition.

We have moved Ireland from a traditional position of being conservative on the Budget to being a strong supporter for significantly increasing the Union’s resources.

Nothing positive has come from the decades of trying to placate Eurosceptics by limiting the Budget to an amount nowhere near what is required to implement our agreed policies.

We need the resources to meet our ambitions and Ireland, as a net contributor to the Budget, is willing to pay its fair share.

Instead of trying to take money away from policies that work like the CAP we need a model for protecting what works and going further on critical areas like a just transition, support for research and achieving energy independence.

We have entered what I believe is a new era in our relations with the European Union. It is critical for our success that Europe is strong – and for it to be strong Ireland needs to play its role as an active voice supporting policies which show the urgency and ambition which these times demand.

Jean Monnet once said that “Europe will be forged in crisis.” He was right, but I would add that Europe must be shaped by its values.

There are things which we simply cannot and must not step back from as being central to our Union. Democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights are not and must never be up for negotiation. When another European country stands bravely against a neo-imperialist aggressor we must stand with them.

Active and positive participation in the European Union has been a dramatic success for independent Ireland – and it will be just as important in the decades ahead.

Antisemitism in Ireland and Current debates

Dermot’s decision to write a comprehensive study of Jews in 20th century Ireland and the nature of antisemitism struck many as a departure from the diplomatic history for which he was increasingly known. In fact, it actually came from the same wish to understand issues which were fundamental to shaping the modern world and understanding Irish statehood.

His research stretched from official papers through to collecting the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. The book which emerged is both rigorous and deeply human.

He invites us to consider the evidence and shows us a fascinating and complex picture of a small, predominantly Catholic country and a community formed by people who came to Ireland following centuries of persecution.

First published in 1998 the book has been reprinted on multiple occasions and may be the most widely read of Dermot’s long list of publications.

As with so many of the themes which he addressed in his career, his work on Jews in Ireland and antisemitism has a deep and growing contemporary relevance. It is also a place where more people should go to find time to reflect on the wisdom and guidance within the work of a great historian.

Antisemitism has been one of the most consistent and pernicious prejudices through most of recorded history. It has repeatedly led not just to daily inconveniences, but it has provided the foundation for murderous outrages in many eras and many places.

It is a prejudice based on ignorance and seeking to blame an ‘other’ for mostly imagined problems, it led to a genocidal holocaust which is unique in world history for its scale and clinical savagery.

The facts show that there are many examples in our history of antisemitic ideas and actions, however they also show that these were not central to public policies or widely held.

In 1936, Chief Rabbi Herzog wrote about his experiences of leading a growing community of Irish Jews and said that while instances of antisemitism were present in Ireland that the country should look at its treatment of Jews with “a just and noble pride”.

Twenty years later, his successor Chief Rabbi Jakobovits, who also went on to be an internationally-renowned religious leader, wrote that he believed Ireland to have “the only Jewish community in the world to be constitutionally protected…[and] is one of the very few countries that has never blemished its record by any serious anti-Jewish outrages.”

It is important to say this because there are voices which are today claiming that this is an inherently antisemitic country and that this can be seen in our history. We certainly have concerns, and I will come to them, but it is important to set out the facts.

Individual cases of violences and prejudices are clearly there. And so too is a more widespread prejudice based on ignorance and now-discarded religious beliefs. But I think an honest appraisal of history shows that Ireland has never come even close to the sort of antisemitism seen in so many other countries.

I particularly want to mention the attempt by some to suggest that Eamon de Valera was somehow an antisemite because of a foolish observation of what he believed to be strict protocol in 1945.

In fact, de Valera had a long and honourable history of being determined to ensure that Ireland’s Jewish community was not subject to the rising discrimination he saw in Europe.

Not only did he include explicit recognition of the rights of the Jewish communities in his constitution, an exceptional act at any time but especially in 1937, he also worked to promote the idea that respect for Judaism should be a core part of Irish society.

Eleven months before the infamous destruction of the synagogues of Germany the head of our government actually wrote to the Jewish community to ask for prayers to be held in Dublin’s synagogues for the success of the new constitution.

A number of our Presidents spend more time on their inauguration day at prayer services in our then largest synagogue than they spend in the great Christian cathedrals of our capital.

De Valera was late in facing-down the callous opposition of the Department of Justice to a more liberal refugee policy, but he regularly intervened in cases seeking admission and secured government approval for the hosting of hundreds of Jewish orphans in 1943.

He was also part of a wider republican group which recognised the role of Irish Jews in securing Irish statehood and the need to show solidarity. For example, his press secretary and his wife, Sineád de Valera, raised funds to help a Jewish family escape the continent and stay here in Cork.

The great Irish patriot Michael Noyek was a trusted confidant of Michael Collins, was election agent for Constance Markiewicz and Seán T O’Kelly and defended some of the most prominent leaders of the War of Independence at their trials. When he died his funeral at the Jewish Cemetery in Dublin was attended by Taoiseach Seán Lemass and an honour party of the Dublin Old IRA.

The facts also show that de Valera was honoured by Jewish leaders here and in Israel in the throughout his post-war years. He was greeted with warmth and generosity by David Ben Gurion and other political and religious leaders in Israel.

As he approached his final years, the Irish Jewish Community honoured him through planting a forest in his name. Prime Minister Eshkol wrote of the “traditional friendship between the Irish and the Jewish peoples” and the head of the Representative Council said, “No man is more deserving to be honoured by our community than Eamon de Valera.”

He was no 21st Century ecumenist, but his commitment to religious toleration and his rejection of antisemitism is absolutely clear. It is simply wrong to try to rewrite history to serve the purposes of today’s arguments.

I have been clear in accepting a definition of antisemitism which goes much further than some of the loudest voices in our country will allow. To ignore the history of exile and dispossession of the Jewish people is to ignore history and I will not do that.

But equally I have to say to the Israeli government that they achieve nothing when trying to label as antisemitic all of us who disagree with their policies and actions.

Why should we have less of a right to disagree with the Netanyahu government than the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have so regularly filled the streets of their cities protesting against what has happened in Gaza?

It is exactly the same motivation which demands that we oppose religious prejudice that demands that we also oppose cruel and wanton destruction such as we have seen in Gaza.

In case anyone tries to claim that there is any equivocation on our behalf in opposing the inhuman slaughter and destruction of Hamas, from the first moments that news of the massacres of October 7th appeared my government condemned it and has continued to do so.

Hamas does not care about the people of Gaza, it cares only for itself and its conception of a holy war of conquest and destruction. It rejects the idea of a democratic state. It rejects the idea of basic human rights for the Palestinian people, and it has no legitimacy to speak on their behalf.

It is a serious issue that there are those who seem to believe that you must pick a side and follow it blindly – that you must support all of the actions of the Israeli government or Hamas.

There is sadly very real evidence of antisemitic incidents in our country and there is also real evidence of people showing a disregard for the opinions and concerns of Jewish people. The growth of language claiming international conspiracies behind various decisions is scarily reminiscent of historical antisemitism.

When a group of people decide that they will seek to rename the only part in our capital named after an Irish Jew without any consultation with the Jewish Community – and when they announce later that they will find a Jew they deem worthy enough to provide a new name – then frankly the community has every right to express its deep concern.

Can you imagine the uproar of many those involved in this move if any other minority’s views were treated in this manner?

Decades into social and academic movements which are based on getting people to recognise implicit prejudice, a lot more reflection is in order.

What distinguishes the great body of work which Dermot Keogh published during his life - and up to today two years after he left us – is that by refusing to fit in with current debates he gave work of permanent significance.

He invited us to join him in looking at issues which went to the heart of who were as a society and where we saw our place in the world.

He never tried to get us to accept a single framing for history and society, he wanted to empower us to draw our own conclusions and, just as importantly, to ask our own questions.

When I look at issues such as Ireland’s view of itself in a wider world, the importance of Europe to us and our importance to Europe, and the need to be constantly vigilant against prejudice targeting minorities, I see issues which are more capable of being understood because of Dermot Keogh.

He was a great scholar. An inspiring mentor. A devoted family man.

His influence and memory will always be with us.