The fifth character of the noughties TV show Sex and the City, it’s often remarked, is New York itself. If that is the case then its spiritual successor must be the entire oeuvre of Sally Rooney, with Dublin in the supporting role. In fact Rooney may have done as much for Ireland’s international reputation as any other diplomat.
Thanks to the blazing success of her three novels – Conversations With Friends, Normal People and Beautiful World Where Are You – images of a modern and cosmopolitan Dublin have been thrust on to the global stage. And Rooney has complicated the romanticised and ersatz perception of Ireland long peddled by Hollywood Studios.
Rooney is not alone in offering this corrective. But the sheer scale of her reach has made her efforts the most influential. The TV dramatisation of Normal People in 2020 compounded the effect. Next week that may go even further, with the small screen release of Conversations With Friends.
If director Lenny Abrahamson pulls it off, we should again see a contemporary Ireland brought to the fore – a place where people go to university, and bars, and have romantic encounters where some people can even be gay. It will also show a place where not everyone is white, and perhaps none of them are even ginger.
The Irish Times view on the British Labour Party: Keir Starmer’s gamble
The Irish Times view on the destruction of ecosystems: Failing to get the message
The Irish Times view on the NI protocol post the election: lowering the temperature
The Irish Times view on EU sanctions against Russia: tightening the net
These are simple, if long overdue, redressals to visions of Ireland as an island populated solely by stern nuns and errant priests; terrorists in balaclavas; wily and aggressive alcoholics; elfin women with lilting accents and untamed hair. In Rooney’s world Dublin is a normal place, and its inhabitants are as urbane and civilised as anywhere else.
Maybe cultural depictions of a nation do not matter all that much. And perhaps the picture of Ireland as a mythical land where fairies and leprechauns and imperious clergymen run amok does not cause any real damage. Rather, it might be interesting to ask exactly why, and why now, a contemporary cultural understanding of Ireland is hoving into view and receiving such protracted attention.
The social revolution of the abortion and gay marriage referendums was about more than just offering rights to those who have long been denied them
Rooney has either tapped into a zeitgeist, or she had a hand in creating and proliferating it herself. The change in the Republic of Ireland in the last decade has been vertiginous. And it is now perfectly obvious there is something new in the atmosphere – what Generation Z might call a “vibe shift”. All of a sudden, it seems, Ireland wields outsized influence on the international stage. And its soft power – long extant – has morphed into something of a marvel.
We can count the ways. The social revolution of the abortion and gay marriage referendums was about more than just offering rights to those who have long been denied them. It was a statement from an electorate wishing to show its direction of travel, its priorities and its predilections had changed.
The shift also emerges from the central role Ireland took in the Brexit negotiations. And that is something not just thanks to the unfortunate facts of geography that thrust the Border into the epicentre of events, but also the product of a clever and well-oiled diplomatic mission.
It comes too from Ireland’s ascension to the United Nations’s Security Council, and from Phil Hogan’s former position as European trade commissioner. Rooney’s characters may not care about anything so technocratic and unliterary, but it makes it no less central to the phenomenon because of that.
Most recently, the support of US president Joe Biden throughout the protocol negotiations has consolidated the emerging trend. Biden might be doing this out of his general affection for the country of his ancestors; or thanks to the potential electoral benefits he may reap because of it; or out of a genuine fervour for protecting peace in Northern Ireland, something some Democrats see as their legacy. Whatever the reason, the fact that his support is loud and direct matters most.
Ireland is experiencing a moment in the limelight. And that is not a twee vision decided upon by romantic Hollywood executives or Conservative MPs
As is often the case, the slowest to acknowledge this movement is the British establishment. It seems the Conservative administration is reluctant to accept a political reality that has granted Ireland influence beyond expectation. And it is perhaps unwilling to view Ireland as a contemporary nation full of complexity and contradictions, rather than something reducible to a list of Punch cartoon stereotypes.
This mindset explains why the British press had such difficulty getting to grips with Leo Varadkar. He did not fit into a preconceived and outdated notion of Irishness – young, gay and with a foreign surname – and he was not in possession of any of the affectations of his predecessors Enda Kenny or Bertie Ahern. More recently, Sinn Féin’s victory in Northern Ireland has evidenced the same mindset. It was not until very recently that the likelihood of Sinn Féin’s dominance north and south of the Border had so much occurred to anyone.
Nevertheless, Ireland is experiencing a moment in the limelight. And that is not a twee vision decided upon by romantic Hollywood executives or Conservative MPs. Rather it is one forged by political manoeuvres and cultural output that refuses to indulge in cliché.
Books about romantic trysts in Dublin are not adjacent to this phenomenon. Rooney’s wild success is central to it.