[donalhunt]

The Irish strategy is to make the pubs too attractive for any attacker to bother with armed conflict. ;)

The Irish position should not be underestimated. It tends to be a bellweather for what others will align with in the future. Ireland tends to use it's soft power very effectively at the global table.

[parthdesai]

Also, Ireland knows a thing or two about what it is like to be oppressed

[alephnerd]

> The Irish position should not be underestimated. It tends to be a bellweather for what others will align with in the future

This really overstates Ireland's position in foreign policy studies. No one at Bruegel, ECFR, Institute Montaigne, GMFUS, and the 2-3 other major EU think tanks that are the de facto voice of European policy are taking Irish policy into account. Ireland lost any chance it had of being at the table when the Eurozone crisis happened. Even Spain and Italy have barely rebuilt their credibility.

> Ireland tends to use it's soft power very effectively at the global table

How? Ireland barely comes up in most conversations aside from using IDA Ireland as a model for attracting services FDI.

[piltdownman]

Citing the Eurozone crisis as if we were analogous on an economic or policy level to Spain/Italy/Greece is just farcical in the extreme. Given our population of ~5 Million we're probably punching above our capita to the largest extent of any EU member-state. Hell, even the Asylum laws governing Europe are named after us:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Regulation

We are also the only EU country where the Constitution ordains a referendum to validate ratification of any amendments that result in a transfer of sovereignty to the European Union; such as the Nice Treaty which we can prevent from passing on an EU level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nice#The_Irish_refer...

Putting aside the multiple times we have held EU Council Presidencies, how about you take our two-year term on the UN Security Council from 2021 to 2022, where we got UN Security Council Resolution 2594 passed – the first ever Resolution on UN Peacekeeping transitions.

Since 1958, Ireland has maintained a constant presence on UN and UN-mandated peace support operations to the point where many English speakers in the South Lebanon do so with an Irish accent. 86 Irish soldiers have died in service of the UN since 1960.

We also have a particular legacy regarding the IDF and war crimes - Like in 1996 UN position 6-52, near Maroun al-Ras, a platoon of 33 Irish troops was surrounded and isolated from UN headquarters by a mechanised IDF unit. Or in May of this year when Irish peacekeepers in Lebanon came under fire from Israeli forces near a bombed out village at Yaroun

https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-peacekeepers-in-lebanon-fire...

We have lost almost 50 troops in Lebanon alone. Approximately 50% of our casualties have been inflicted by Islamist resistance groups such as Hezbollah – the other 50% by the IDF and their paramilitary proxies in the area.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/15/un-pea...

[tguvot]

UNIFIL and Irish peacekeepers were so effective that UNIFIL is disbanded as of next year