(John Maynard Keynes)

KEYNES first came to Ireland in 1911 with a group of fifty Liberal Party MPs for a two-week tour. Dissatisfied by their company, he departed for a week by himself which, as he later said to his mother, helped convert him to Home Rule. The second visit, in 1933, was a major political event in the midst of the economic war between Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Keynes not only saw himself playing the role of a peacemaker, but also used his lecture at UCD to explore the issue of free trade versus protectionism. Unprecedentedly, the audience was formed by both sides of Ireland’s fractious political elite. Among Keynes’s typically hectic schedule was a dinner after the lecture during which he was called to the phone. On his return he announced that the U.S. had just left the Gold Standard. The natural silence which followed was broken by poet Oliver St. John Gogarty asking: ‘Does that matter?