The question Lemass was forced to pose was whether Ireland could even be thought of as part of western Europe. It had always imagined itself to be so, to belong in some profound way, in particular to the Catholic Europe of Italy and France and Spain. But there was a rough awakening to Ireland’s marginal place in Europe. In the tentative negotiations for the formation of EFTA, Ireland found itself in a group of four countries explicitly pleading that they would need very special arrangements because they were too underdeveloped to cope with the rigours of free trade. The other countries were
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