The struggle for Ireland’s soul

A row over a school textbook symbolises the culture war plaguing the emerald isle

Is there a nation that, outside of war, has undergone more dramatic social and cultural change in recent years than Ireland? If there is, I’d like to hear about it. From this side of the water, the emerald isle seems to be going through the most disruptive convulsions, as those determined to defend age-old norms and a more traditional way of life do battle with a new breed of socio-political influencers who seem intent on remaking the country in their own image.

Immigration, abortion, the role of the church and family, free speech, LGBT rights: all these issues have become flashpoints in a culture war between woke modernists – heavily-represented among Ireland’s elites – hellbent on transforming the country into one in which the precepts of cosmopolitan liberalism reign supreme, and those, predominantly lower down the social order, who still see strength in the old ways and are uneasy about the rush to a brave new world.   

The whole situation is redolent in many ways of the civilisational clash that has been playing out in Britain over the past couple of decades and was instrumental in giving us Brexit.

The chasm in priorities between the old and the new – on the one hand those who remain wedded to more old-fashioned values and, on the other, the Irish metropolitan-liberal class – was encapsulated in a recent furore surrounding the publication of a controversial school textbook. The book contained a section entitled ‘All Different All Equal’ that featured two very different families. The fierce backlash it caused throughout the country was hardly surprising.