Читать книгу The Globalist - John Walsh - Страница 6

ON THE MORNING OF 11 SEPTEMBER 2016, A seventy-year-old Irishman suffered a heart attack and collapsed on a footpath in London. He had been walking to mass, as he had done every Sunday throughout his life.

A number of people rushed to his aid. He was carrying no identification. During the nine minutes it took the ambulance to arrive, those who attended to the stricken man could scarcely have realised who lay before them.

It was Peter Sutherland. ‘The father of globalisation’ and ‘God’s Banker’ are among the soubriquets he had collected during his career. He was possibly the most influential Irish person ever and a key figure in world history over the past few decades.

In many ways, he was the personification of the changing relationship between Ireland and Britain. As a European commissioner for competition he had taken on the British government and prevailed. He would later become chairman of BP, one of the UK’s largest companies.

He operated at the heart of the British establishment, yet he remained an outsider. He was a fiercely proud Irishman. And even though his influence spanned continents, he never strayed too far from his roots.