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After the long emotional excitement of the fight for independence, Ireland in the postwar years seemed to be hibernating, caught in a descending spiral of cynicism and feckless nostalgia. Its malaise was expressed by Playwright Sean O'Casey: "Someone or something is ruining us. What do we send out to the world now but woeful things—young lads and lassies, porther, greyhounds, sweep tickets, and the shamrock green? We've scatthered ourselves over the wide world, and left our own sweet land thin. We're just standing on our knees now." Bloody Baluba. Today the Irish are beginning to stand on their feet. In business and government, universities and pubs, there is a new sense of purpose and push, a mounting awareness that Ireland has finally begun to make its way in the world.
After four decades of broody isolation, and seemingly pro-German neutrality in World War II (although in their contrary way, many Irish volunteered for the British army), a newly outward-looking Ireland has acquired international influence out of all proportion to its size or political power. In the United Nations, the nonaligned Irish —led by Ambassador Frederick Boland, who was President of the General Assembly in the time of Khrushchev's shoe-banging tantrum—are universally respected. In the Congo, where 5,000 Irish troops have served—and 26 died —with the U.N. peacekeeping mission, their probity and discipline command the admiration of Africans and Belgians alike. The experience has added a new term of abuse to the Irishman's copious vocabulary of invective: "You bloody Baluba!"* The U.N. Irish have taught many a native to dance a jig. Says a captain from Cork: "Only the Irish and other heathens can appreciate our dahling pipes."
Two-Way Bridge. As the man who has done most to end his country's long sleep, Sean Lemass got his chance when he took over as Taoiseach in 1959.
De Valera, near-blind and doggedly indifferent to the country's worsening economic plight, was persuaded by his own Fianna Fail Party to step aside for Lemass and run for the presidency. His successor, after 19 years as Minister of Commerce and Industry, was passionately convinced that Ireland's timorous protectionism could only lead to national extinction. As Fianna Fail's new leader, Lemass was the antithesis of all the old fire-breathing heroes, talked trade and tariffs to the voters in intense, rapid-fire sentences that many found hard to follow. "That Lemass!" snorted one dubious Dublin politician. "He couldn't lead Ireland over O'Connell Bridge."
What Sean Lemass wanted most was to lure foreign investors over O'Connell Bridge. The new Prime Minister sent blarney-blessed salesmen around the world persuading foreign industries to set up plants in Ireland. They offered one of the few labor surpluses in all Europe, liberal grants for equipment and construction, and additional cash to companies that would build plants and train workers in Ireland's pinched northwest and south.