I have incurred many debts while writing this book. I am especially grateful to Odile Jacob, who has been tremendously supportive, and to my editor Gaëlle Jullien, whose idea it was in the first place and who provided me with many insightful comments on the manuscript. Gaëlle and I met because of my participation in the 2017 Journées de l’économie in Lyon, France, and I thank those responsible for organizing the event, in particular Pascal Le Merrer and Éric Monnet, as well as Éric Albert who moderated a stimulating panel discussion on Brexit in which I participated.fn1 I have also greatly enjoyed working with Christophe Jaquet, who was an excellent, responsive and flexible translator.
In addition to Gaëlle, I particularly want to thank those who read the manuscript in whole or in part, and provided me with encouragement and invaluable feedback: Graham Brownlow, Rosemary Byrne, Ian Crawford, Zoé Fachan, Henrik Iversen, Declan Kelleher, Dennis Novy, Andrew O’Rourke and Alan Taylor. I am also very grateful to Alex Barker, Steve Broadberry, Fred Calvaire, Gilles Cloître, Tony Connelly, Chris Cook, Nicholas Crafts, Éric Delépine, Peter Foster, Chris Giles, David Allen Green, Mark Harrison, Katy Hayward, Morgan Kelly, Philip Lane, Sam Lowe, Philippe Martin, Jacques Mollard, Ollie Molloy, Simon Nixon, Cormac Ó Gráda, Régine Rigaud, Jan Södersten, Jean-Jacques Tardy, Alan Taylor, Karl Whelan and Fred Wilmot-Smith, all of whom answered questions, provided references, discussed Brexit with me, or helped me in various other ways to write this book. I couldn’t have written the book without Rosemary’s help and as ever I owe her a tremendous debt of gratitude. She and our four children, Ciara, Joseph, Gabriel and Sophie, have had lively discussions with me about many of the issues discussed in this book, and provided me with constant encouragement and emotional and practical support. All five have my love and thanks. I have learned an enormous amount from almost daily exchanges with Alan and Dennis ever since June 2016, and not only about Brexit, while in addition to reading the manuscript closely Zoé very helpfully summarized the history of the border in the Vallée des Entremonts for me.
A Short History of Brexit was written during a sabbatical year in Dublin and Saint Pierre d’Entremont, a small village in the Chartreuse that the reader will encounter in the text. My time in Dublin was spent visiting the School of Economics in University College Dublin, whose staff have been magnificently generous to me. I am very grateful indeed to Paul Devereux and Karl Whelan for making it happen. A lot of the arguments in this book have been rehearsed in the UCD Common Room: Morgan Kelly, Dave Madden, Cormac Ó Gráda, Oana Peia and Stijn van Weezel bore the brunt of my opining, although few of my colleagues were entirely spared. It’s a real tragedy that the Common Room is being closed by the University administration this winter: a casual act of vandalism that will make UCD duller and less distinctive. It’s a lot easier to destroy the social fabric of a community than to build it up from scratch.
I have had the good fortune of being able learn extensively from current and former Irish Permanent Representatives to the EU. It has been a great pleasure to get to know Declan Kelleher, who has taught me a lot, and who along with his colleagues has been doing sterling work for Ireland in Brussels. But my most important intellectual debt is to my father, Andrew O’Rourke, who was Ireland’s Permanent Representative in the early 1980s and also served as Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Irish Ambassador to Denmark, France and the United Kingdom. He’s a modest man and probably won’t like me mentioning any of this, but there you are. I have learned a huge amount from him during our walks in Dalkey and Wicklow and look forward to continuing to do so.
Finally, I have benefited greatly from the fact that I am an Irishman who has worked in Oxford since 2011 and also spends a lot of time in France. Being constantly exposed to very different opinions on Brexit has been immensely stimulating, and I am grateful in particular to have had the opportunity to learn about Brexit, and Britain, and British identity, from my British colleagues. When I got the job I presumed that All Souls would be full of accomplished academics, and indeed it is, but I did not anticipate how warm and welcoming a community it would prove to be, or how many friends I would make there. Being a fellow of the College has been an extraordinary privilege and it has also been tremendous fun. So I dedicate this book to the fellows and staff of All Souls College, British and foreign, Leavers and Remainers alike.
Saint Pierre d’Entremont
14 September 2018