Joe Conway (Independent)

I want to reference in the short time I have this morning connections, economic and cultural, between us and Japan. Economically, Japan is our second biggest trade partner in the Pacific area, with an annual import-export of over €21 billion, a not inconsiderable amount. However, it is mainly the cultural connections between the two countries that I want to advert to, in particular with regard to a great Irish-Japanese personage called Lafcadio Hearn.

Lafcadio Hearn would be unknown to many people in this House and was certainly unknown to me but for a bit of serendipity that happened back in the early 2000s. When I was principal of the school in Dunmore East, I had a Japanese intern in with me for six months. After three or four weeks, she asked me whether I realised that a very famous Japanese-Irish writer lived for many years in Tramore in County Waterford, and I had to confess my total ignorance of this. She informed me about Lafcadio Hearn and what an amazing personage he was in writing. She said that he would have the same sort of literary status in Japan as William Butler Yeats would have here in Ireland. Anyway, we had the Japanese ambassador down in 2004 to launch the Tramore Lafcadio Hearn society and on foot of that, one of the great dynamos in Tramore, Agnes Aylward, and her amanuensis Janet set about seeking to establish the Lafcadio Hearn gardens. I know Members are going on recess very shortly, so I am entreating them to come to Tramore and see these beautiful peaceful gardens, much unsung, much unheralded but nevertheless absolutely gorgeous and well worth a visit, as is Tramore, of course, in general. Lafcadio Hearn has a reputation in Japan as being the great interpreter of Japan for the western world. We had an extension of the garden on Friday last, appropriately enough on the 175th anniversary of Lafcadio Hearn's birth in 1850; he died in 1906. He took on the Japanese name of Koizumi Yakumo when he was out there. He married and had a Japanese family, many of whom still come to Ireland. His great-grandnephew comes to Tramore. It is a really wonderful story but it is one of total serendipity. Any of us in this House should celebrate the great cultural connection and ongoing and thriving cultural connection that exists between us and Japan.