Although Irish culture can be readily found around South Korea at this point (that's a popular restaurant in Seoul in the photo), this sounds like a first: a five-person delegation from Ireland will arrive in Seoul to discuss North-South relations with senior officials at South Korea's unification ministry next week.
Makes sense--not only are the Irish familiar with living a divided existence both physically and politically (Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), Koreans have been casually referred to as the "Asian Irish" for quite some time now (though I've also heard of other comparisons such as the "Asian Italians" and recently even the "Asian Dutch"). The reasons for these comparisons, especially the Irish example, extend from similarities in the food/drink culture to geopolitical parallels.
No doubt the Irish peace agreement from the 1990s will be utilized as an important reference for the delegation, but Irish ambassador to Korea Eamonn McKee stresses that a key point for his delegation's approach would be to refrain from extending examples from other international conflicts on to the Korean peninsula's situation by simply presenting "what we did." I think this approach reveals a certain level of sophistication in terms of context.
On my first trip to Ireland I decided it's one of the most beautiful (and underrated) countries in Europe and even the entire world. The people there share a vigorous sense of humor very similar to Koreans which will only aid in the sharing of perspectives on unification. This is an important conversation as both Ireland and South Korea have relatively recent, dramatic political and economic experiences.
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