The annual St Patrick's Day shamrock ceremony will take place virtually on Wednesday when Taoiseach Micheál Martin and US president Joe Biden meet by video-conference for an occasion that symbolises the abiding connections between the two countries. If the format is a reminder of our extraordinary circumstances, against a background of national trauma on both sides of the Atlantic, the unspoken theme will in fact be of continuity, not rupture. With Donald Trump gone from power, taoisigh must no longer go through the awkward charade of feigning respect for the US president; in Biden Ireland has a genuine friend and ally whose administration is attuned to Irish concerns.
The maintenance of the annual ritual, even in improvised form, should also help to focus minds on the acute post-pandemic challenges ahead for Ireland. The retreat of Covid-19 in the near future is not a given, but it is looking increasingly likely thanks to the remarkable effectiveness of vaccines. When a critical mass of the population is inoculated, restrictions can be expected to ease and the long national recovery – mental, cultural, economic – can begin.
If the Covid-19 endgame is in sight, it is because a global crisis has been met with unprecedented collaboration, exchange and team-work
Hospital Report
Some of the problems the State will face once the crisis abates are familiar ones that never went away - ensuring the damage from Brexit can be contained, decarbonising the economy and addressing the critical housing shortage, among others. Still more will flow directly from the pandemic, such as helping the many thousands of newly-unemployed, enabling the health service to regroup after the emergency, dealing with the hit to the public finances or reckoning with the damage incurred by so many businesses around the country.
Across the policy agenda, however, the experience of the pandemic should alter perspectives. The crisis has underlined the importance of a strong, well-run, caring State – and our need to equip it to act in our interests. It has shown the capacity for excellence, even heroism, in systems, such as the health service, that had become bywords for stasis. It has reminded us that cities are for living in and that social solidarity runs deep. In separating “essential workers” from the rest, it has exposed an economic system that pays the least to those we need the most.
More than anything, perhaps, on this day devoted to celebrating Irish exceptionalism, it is worth reflecting on how the crisis has shown that our greatest problems are shared – and so too are the solutions. If the Covid-19 endgame is in sight, it is because a global crisis has been met with unprecedented collaboration, exchange and team-work in scientific fields that know no borders.
The pandemic struck in an era of resurgent nationalism. One of its most enduring legacies should be to vindicate the internationalist case for collective action.