Publication

'Ah, Ireland, the caring nation': foreign aid and Irish state identity in the long 1970s

O'Sullivan, Kevin
Citation
O'Sullivan, K. (2013). ‘Ah, Ireland, the caring nation’: Foreign aid and Irish state identity in the long 1970s. Irish Historical Studies, 38(151), 476-491. doi:10.1017/S0021121400001607
Abstract
On a plane leaving Baidoa refugee camp in Somalia in late 1992, an Arab doctor offered John O'Shea, head of the relief agency Goal, a glimpse of how the Irish were viewed in that civil war-ravaged state. ‘Ah, Ireland’, he remarked on learning of O'Shea's country of origin, ‘the caring nation’. He had reason to be complimentary. In addition to the aid agencies and aid workers involved in the ongoing relief effort, Somalia had recently hosted two highprofile visitors from the Irish state. In August 1992 the minister for Foreign Affairs, David Andrews, spent three days in the country to view at first-hand its escalating civil war. He was followed less than two months later by President Mary Robinson, whose arrival at Baidoa on 2 October marked the beginning of a tour – the first by a Western head of state – of the feeding stations and refugee camps that provided succour to those displaced by the conflict.
Funder
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publisher DOI
10.1017/S0021121400001607
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Ireland