Fionnán Sheahan

There was even a kind of mutterings of apologize for the condition.

We've left this country and slope back to the United Kingdom with Britain because we would certainly economically be doing better.

Eventually, Eamon de Valera in 1959 was elected president.

to ceremonial ribbon-cutting, went to Orson Welles around the Phoenix Park.

And Sean Lemass takes over, as you say, a veteran of the 1916 Rising War of Independence, Civil War, all of that.

But suddenly a very pragmatic, always a very pragmatic man,

carried very little baggage and was convinced, and now some of this is overstated, but Ken Whittaker, T.K.

Whittaker, the most senior civil servant, he got his head under la masse.

He was the native of County Down, a very pragmatic and determined individual.

He came up with a whole new take on the Irish economy to open it.

It had been a protectionism and the whole lot.

And by the way,

Sean Lemass was a great proponent of protectionism for the vast bulk of his life, but he went with the idea of opening to overseas investment, all the multinationals, which we now have, which we still have, that began dismantling tariffs.

Kind of moving from an agriculture-based economy to an industry-based economy.

Absolutely, yeah.

We only have to talk about the census of 100 years ago, which also has come out in the past month very much reflects what the country was.

And it was the Le Mas here that began that transition.

Yeah, and even the hangover, the 1961 census said the population of the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland was 2.8 million.

It had kept declining since the famine in the 1840s.

So this change was very necessary.