BEING an insignificant country has its benefits.

It is not like we can do much about it anyway, but being a small island on the western edge of the Atlantic does have its advantages.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t acknowledge the extraordinary impact we have had on a global scale.

Of course we overdo that. We market ourselves as the finest little country there is and at times that can, as my Cork mother would say, “make you throw up what you never ate”.

Self-praise, as they say, is no praise at all.

The fact remains, though, that Irish literature, music, people, have had an influence upon the world that is completely out of sync with our size and our power...

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