Voices and fears from an Ireland that depends on Big Tech and is celebrating the US election result. But now it is looking to Europe

Dublin. The Trump threat may not yet be over, but his defeat is a breath of fresh air. Why a threat? Are the United States not, in fact, the oxygen that has revived Ireland? Yes, American multinationals, with their windfall profits, have bolstered the state’s finances, but they have made the country too dependent, and the protectionist shift of the past two years has raised fears that their withdrawal under pressure from the White House could bring the new boom to an end. A well-founded fear, as we shall see. The Donald has sown discord here too: reopening a centuries-old wound, he has said he favours reunification with the North. Since the Good Friday Agreement – the peace treaty signed in 1998 – tensions have eased, partly because the status quo has been acknowledged and, apart from a few IRA nostalgics, people have avoided saying the unspeakable. During the meetings I attended while travelling through Ireland—drenched by autumn rain and bathed in crisp northern light—everyone, from the Foreign Minister to the Italian Ambassador, right down to the influential economist who has advised several governments, poured water on the fire smouldering beneath the ashes. Yet all emphasised the shift that has now become necessary: more Europe, less America.

Let’s begin our tour with one of the most dynamic counties: Meath, situated in the Boney River valley, about an hour’s drive from Dublin. We are welcomed at the Thrive Centre of Business Excellence by Majella Farrell, who heads the economic development department. On the table lies a leaflet featuring a photomontage that serves as a welcome message. At the top is the tomb of Newgrange (Sí an Bhrú [in Gaelic]), beneath the Colosseum. The prehistoric burial mound, probably a royal tomb, is older than the Flavian Amphitheatre, yet no less significant; it dates back to the Neolithic period, 3,100 BC, predating the Egyptian pyramids. Two eras, two cultures—the Celtic and the Latin—which had dominated the continent and even fought over it, spilling blood in the process. It is intended as a gentle tribute from the county to Rome—not the Rome whose legions never set foot here, but the Rome of Catholicism, of cultural exchange, and of the European Union. The ‘Ultima Thule’ lay far away for the emperors who had taken possession of Anglia, but this gateway to the Atlantic, situated at the apex of a triangle capable of uniting the New and Old Continents, remains distant even today.

In searching for the threads that link Dublin and Rome, we undoubtedly find a shared pro-American stance. Both governments support Ukraine, even though Ireland is militarily neutral and intends to remain so, as confirmed by Foreign Minister Helen McEntee. But the aid is not merely financial; to defend itself and hold out, Kyiv needs information technology, and Ireland has much to offer. Ties with the United States are unbreakable despite the risks; however, 2026 has truly been a difficult year for relations with Washington, admits the minister, a member of Fine Gael, Ireland’s second-largest party (liberal-conservative), which governs in coalition with the nationalist Fianna Fáil, founded by Éamon de Valera. With a wealth of political experience behind her, many already regard her as the next prime minister. The US Congress is now in the hands of the Democrats. But what would happen, we asked her, if a Donald Trump – further embittered by his defeat – were to push multinationals to return home? Her answers are diplomatic yet at the same time concerned. Memories of 2008 are still fresh: when the country went bankrupt, just like Greece, and had to turn to the troika (the ECB, the IMF and the European Commission) for a bailout, swallowing a very bitter pill. It was the multinationals themselves that sparked a recovery that astonished many. Sixty per cent of revenue in the state budget comes from Big Tech and Big Pharma, whose European subsidiaries have set up shop in a Dublin that continues to change its face. Negative signs are already visible. Those who are here are staying, at least for now; it is difficult to dismantle factories, but easier to shut down offices and service-providing companies in the blink of an eye. There are no worrying signs as yet, yet new arrivals have come to a standstill in County Meath and beyond – a trend confirmed by Breda O’Sullivan, head of the government agency responsible for attracting and managing foreign direct investment. And then there is always the Wall Street risk, where it all begins and often ends.

In the nineteenth century, the railway bubble burst, leading to a wave of bankruptcies amongst companies and speculative investors, but the tracks remained. In the twentieth century it was oil and telecommunications; in the 2000s, the internet and the esoteric innovations of finance; now, it is artificial intelligence. All crises that have left hordes of losers and new winners in their wake, but the innovations have endured; from being disruptive, they have become permanent. Even Ireland is considering how to make the choice that transformed the ‘Celtic Tiger’ – as it was known in the 1990s – into a high-tech albatross, if not permanent, then at least long-lasting. Next year, the budget surplus is expected to reach 10 billion euros. This is the result of a fivefold increase in corporate tax over the last decade. Almost half of this comes from three groups: Apple, Microsoft and Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant. Ireland is therefore skating on thin ice, as explained by Professor Alan Barrett, who from 2015 to 2025 headed the Economic & Social Research Institute, the country’s most authoritative economic think tank, which all Irish governments regularly draw upon. He receives us in the building housing the Department of Foreign Affairs, formerly the Guinness family residence, which has been handed over to the government. Iveagh House, at No. 80 Stephen’s Green, had been purchased in 1856 by Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness and passed down through three generations of the powerful family that had made its fortune with stout. In 1939, Rupert Guinness donated the building and its beautiful gardens to the Irish Free State as a contribution to its independence, on condition that it become the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

How have the resources of multinational companies been used? Primarily for social spending, pensions, healthcare and welfare in general. Less so on infrastructure, which is indeed lacking. Dublin still does not have a metro system, and the Metrolink project is now getting under way, which will link the city centre to the airport via an automated line nearly 19 kilometres long, partly underground (a consortium involving Webuild is participating in the tender). There is much to be done in the electricity and water networks, as well as in urban regeneration. The government has appointed Kurt Kiaer, former head of Norway’s extremely wealthy sovereign wealth fund, and has committed to channelling 0.8 per cent of GDP annually into the ‘Fund for the Future of Ireland’, leaving the money untouched until 2041; another fund has been set up to finance infrastructure, climate action and nature conservation, allocating two billion euros a year between now and 2030.

There has been much debate in Italy as to whether Ireland could serve as a model for attracting foreign investment. Now the dark side is also coming to light, but there is certainly much to learn. The country has enticed high-tech giants with a range of incentives: tax incentives are key, with a tax rate of 12.5 per cent, but there are other important factors, such as a young and well-educated population, controlled immigration, excellent universities – including those beyond the legendary Trinity College – and the English language. It is true that Irish is taught in schools and promoted, particularly in official documents and on road signs, but nobody speaks it and, as people candidly admit, few understand it. All these advantages cannot exist in Italy; it is therefore not a question of copying, but rather of forging relationships based on mutual interest. We are lagging far, far behind in the digital economy as a whole, not just in artificial intelligence. We should have made use of the opportunities that Ireland offered – and, to some extent, still offers – to establish laboratories, research centres and start-ups in Dublin and the surrounding area. Take the pharmaceutical sector, for example, where Italy has managed to carve out an important position in Europe and on international markets, but needs to take a more leading role in the research, development and testing of so-called ‘superdrugs’, a field in which Big Pharma takes the lion’s share.

The most prominent Italian company in Dublin is a bank, albeit a specialised one, such as Mediolanum. With all due respect to Ennio Doris and Silvio Berlusconi, as well as to Taleggio cheese, buffalo mozzarella, pasta, pizza and whatever else fosters good relations and brings in a bit of cash. But the question is: what is it that today places a country at the top of the global economy? Above all, Italy has to offer a vast market, a ‘soft power’ built on culture and lifestyles, a tradition and a manufacturing capacity that Ireland is seeking to introduce by supporting the very fabric of businesses that is lacking here. Dublin aims to shift up a gear by developing a more robust domestic economy and opening up to new countries; Italy must accelerate rapidly and substantially in the digital sphere and ensure that the ‘pharmaceutical miracle’ takes a leap forward in research, innovation and new discoveries. Ireland was Francesco Cossiga’s passion, a regular holiday destination even whilst he was president, and he was a staunch supporter of republican independence, with particular focus on the century-long civil war in Ulster. Sergio Mattarella, too, has worked hard to strengthen relations which, in truth, are friendly and cordial, but tenuous. Ambassador Elizabeth McCullough, who arrived in Rome a year ago, has embarked on an intensive tour of Italian municipalities and provinces to get to know the local communities, forge links and strengthen an economic partnership that is all too tenuous (Italy is only the seventh-largest trading partner), including through twinning arrangements with the counties.

The spectre of the great crash still haunts the data centres that account for a quarter of electricity demand, just as it does the Norman castle at Trim, whose ruins can be seen from the window of the hotel where we are staying. The influx of multinationals had fuelled growth of over 9 per cent between 1995 and 2000. One of the poorest countries, ranked amongst the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), had become one of the most prosperous, disproving the acronym coined by economists at Goldman Sachs. That policy was excessive, judging by the catastrophic crisis, but in essence it remains the same; it has simply become more selective. Today, the message is: diversify and expand the domestic production base. Ireland’s six-month presidency of the European Union, which ends at the end of the year, has provided an opportunity to focus on more immediate solutions. Until the last decade, the main markets for Irish exports were the UK and the US; today it is continental Europe, with the UK in second place and the US accounting for just over 7 per cent, explains Nick Marmion of Enterprise Ireland, the government’s development agency. Brexit has also helped the Irish following the initial row over the border, as the European border cuts across the island, leaving the north as an integral part of the United Kingdom. But the troubles caused by Brexit have led many businesses, both financial and industrial, to relocate to the Republic of Ireland to enjoy the undoubted benefits offered by the EU. What happens if London changes its mind? On this point too, Minister Helen McEntee is taking a cautious approach. She does not see such a risk, as the border with Ulster has now become more symbolic than anything else, once the complex problems caused by Brexit have been resolved.

Beyond the complex legal and economic issues, the mood of the population is decisive: people in both Northern and Southern Ireland are, and consider themselves to be, fully-fledged Irish, regardless of whether they are Catholic or Protestant, despite a border that is accepted as a fait accompli but is increasingly blurred, porous, even open. Young people study on both sides of the border; there is a natural flow of people travelling to visit friends and relatives, and a climate of peaceful normality has taken hold. No one can rule out the possibility of last-minute setbacks, but in Dublin there is a conviction that the generation of peace has taken root. As for the English, ‘there is a philosophical commonality between us and them’, explains Professor Barrett. Despite all the suffering, bereavements and repression they have endured, the Irish have a way of being and living very similar to that of the English, which represents, as Fernand Braudel might have said, the fabric of the long term. Some of the men who have made English-language poetry, science, law and economics great are Irish: to name but the best known, Berkeley, Swift, Smith, Boyle, Burke, Wilde, Shaw and Yeats, who in 1925 warned: “Ireland does not belong any more to the Catholics than it does to us (Protestants). We must take pride in our diversity and be just as proud of it as they are of theirs’.

At the end of this brief journey, one might say that the most American of European countries now fears the fever raging in America. It is true that all our interviewees urge us not to despair; we must distinguish between the Trump administration and the United States. The Democrats are not the MAGA crowd, yet isolationism is a nasty disease that has always plagued the United States and, much like malaria, appears, disappears and inexorably returns. On the other side of the Atlantic, in that continent-sized country where Italians and Irishmen have often fought tooth and nail over a crust of bread, a job in smoky factories, a police uniform, and even neighbourhood gangs in New York, Boston and Chicago, on Tuesday 3 November, something occurred that would have lent credence to another warning from the great poet William Butler Yeats, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923: ‘Consider first how many capable men, endowed with a public spirit, the country can rely upon, and shape the system around those men’.