I hesitate to quote James Joyce in the presence of one of the foremost Joycean scholars of the State, but prior to his death when asked about leaving Ireland, he said, "I never left". He told the truth because in his heart, mind, intellect and writing he had never left, but this isolated, insular, priest-ridden, nationalist place closed itself off from the world and finally the time came when it opened up. A large part of the opening up was due to one of the architects of the economic isolation, Lemass, who unbundled all that had gone before piece by piece to connect and move from isolation.