The German ambassador is not the first diplomat to cause a stir with his remarks, recalls Conor O'Clery.
On January 28th, 1981, The Irish Times published comments made by a US embassy press attache, Robin Berrington, that are still remembered by many to this day. The 40-year-old foreign service officer was not enjoying his time here and expressed his feeling in a round-robin New Year letter which he photocopied and posted to his friends in the State Department in Washington.
One of his Dublin colleagues maliciously put copies of his letter into brochures that the US ambassy sent out about the newly-elected US president, Ronald Reagan, and one turned up in The Irish Times.
Ireland was "pretty small potatoes" compared to the "other countries of Europe," Berrington wrote. "No great issues burn up the wires between Dublin and Washington. The country has food and climate well matched for each other - dull . . . The one bright spot is the people, but after 2½ years, they remain enigmatic and unpredictable despite their easy approachability and charm . . . The high cost of goods, their unavailability, the dreary urban scapes, the constant strikes and the long, dark and damp winters combine to gnaw away at one's enthusiasm for being here. The troubles up North are a constant depression as well and there is no end in sight for that complex, senseless tragedy".
After some sideswipes at "wild-eyed" republicans and the Anglo-Irish set "who speak as if they had marbles in their mouths", Berrington proceeded to categorise the Irish in general as "a people with too much human nature - violent and compassionate - for their own good."
What was amazing, however, was that "the Irish manage to muddle through with such good humour, pluck and inventiveness". Almost as an afterthought he described a visit to England where he found the English "unsufferable . . . Whatever reservations I may have about Ireland, at least the Irish are warm, lively human beings".
The Irish Times praised Berrington as a rare diplomat who spoke his mind and restored "one's faith in the humanity of diplomats". The letter "was worth a dozen speeches to Rotary or Chambers of Commerce. It was fresh, critical but with a good deal of feeling. Any Irishman couldn't have done better. He deserves to be promoted." The sentiment was shared by Gay Byrne on his morning RTÉ programme.
Rather than being promoted, however, Berrington was given 48 hours to leave the country by US ambassador William Shannon. As he flew back to Washington, he did not know if he would be dismissed from the foreign service. At first it looked bad.
He was confronted with negative news stories in the US media. The New York Times reported that he could have been left to "cook in the Irish stew he created". Time magazine made Berrington's "small potatoes" remark a quote of the week, noting that it had "outraged the Irish". The Washington Post praised Shannon for his "diplomatic skill under pressure" and his use of "a little Irish-American charm to soothe a troubled situation".
In fact, the Berrington letter did not outrage the Irish and if anything people were puzzled that Shannon, a former journalist and member of the New York Times editorial board, should have sent him home so abruptly.
The overall reaction to Berrington was favourable. Several writers to the letters column of this newspaper suggested that he be appointed the next ambassador to Dublin.
The New York Times did a follow-up story reporting that the diplomat had been winning praise from many Irish and noting that one caller to a local radio show said he thought that Berrington should be named "Man of the Year".
Berrington in the end kept his job in the US diplomatic service. He had to lie low until a few months later when his next posting was due - in Japan, the country he had always wanted, and where he had studied as a student. Any concern that he would not be welcome in the Tokyo embassy was dispelled when the American ambassador to Japan, Michael Mansfield, remarked, "I could use anyone who could write a letter like that, I like his style." Berrington spent many happy years in Japan, writing speeches and escorting visiting dignitaries such as Hillary Clinton around town, and standing in for visiting ballet and opera companies that needed western faces to fill costumes on stage. He was then transferred as press attache to London, which was very big potatoes, and where great issues did burn up the wires between there and Washington.
The publication of his letter became a defining moment in his career. "People forever attach something like that to you," he told me recently from his home in Washington, to where he has retired. "I would be in a bar and I would mention that I worked in the embassy in Dublin and I would be asked 'Were you there when that guy wrote the nasty letter?'"
But he also got a boxload of letters and telegrams from Irish people praising him for being forthright about the state of the nation.
Years later, in 2003, the former foreign service officer again put his name to a controversial letter. Berrington was one of 80 former US diplomats who signed a petition to Bush slamming the president for costing America its "credibility, prestige and friends" through his one-sided Middle East policy.
Conor O'Clery was news editor of The Irish Times at the time of the Berrington letter. He is author of Chuck Feeney, The Billionaire Who Wasn't (Perseus Books), the recently published biography of the Irish-American philanthropist.