About how we have so often stepped-back and failed to move forward in acknowledging Irishness and Irish history in all of its complexity. Are we more likely to looked at the separate and uniqueness of our past, rather than understand that we have always been engaged and open to a wider world of ideas? Without O’Connell Irish history would have been more provincial and less national. It is in this context that I think we have much to learn from the complex and dramatic legacy of Daniel O’Connell. And this is especially important today because of both the situation in the wider world and the great challenges we face here on this island.