There’s a lot of it.

The reason for the dazzling display is they have been travelling the world for decades, representing Ireland, and wherever they went, it seemed fitting for their hosts to present the Irish ambassador with one of his country’s most famous exports.

“We’re very proud in Ireland of Waterford, it says something about craftsmanship, delicacy and a commitment to excellence,” O’Brien says.

The ambassador is now retired and chose to return to Canberra, having fallen in love with the capital after living here previously for seven years as Dublin’s representative.

His living room is filled with mementos from a life well-travelled. Along with the crystal, there’s a porcelain crib of Mary, Joseph and Jesus presented by Yassar Arafat, a magnificent glass model of a Filipino sailing boat from the Irish in Manila, Chinese figures from Singapore and many, many books collected during his travels.

As we go out to the balcony for photos, he begins talking enthusiastically about the Irishness of Australia and why he and his wife have retired to Canberra.

Towns and villages in an arc to the north and west of Canberra, such as Gundagai and Boorowa, display the strong Irish heritage of pioneers. If you walk through the cemetery in such places, you can see many headstones displaying names like Maloney, Murphy or McMahon.

“This is true across so much of rural and regional Australia,” O’Brien says. "I remembering visiting Dublin in South Australia, named by Governor Richard MacDonnell in honour of the place of his birth, and finding headstones with Irish family names from Collins and Cronin to Kennedy, McCann and O’Dea.

“One of the great joys of coming here is that Australia is a country that, we like to say, is proportionally the most Irish country in the world … probably about a third of the population is of Irish descent.

“There is a sense that the Irish contributed much to the making of the nation, to Australia’s sense of social justice and mateship, sense of larrikinism, good humour, the Australian commitment to the fair go, as well as to the political and social development of the nation.”

O’Brien volunteers that one of the most memorable moments during his time as Irish ambassador to Australia was the swearing-in ceremony of Sir William Deane as governor-general.

“Members of the diplomatic core were gathered in the Senate, in the public gallery, looking down at the great ceremony,” he recalls.

“It suddenly struck me that on the podium was Sir William Deane and his wife Lady Helen, both of Irish heritage. Sitting beside them was Paul Keating - he was very conscious of his Irish heritage and very proud of it.

“Beside Mr Keating was [senate president] Senator Michael Beahan from Western Australia whose parents were Irish. Beside Lady Helen was Mr Stephen Martin, the speaker of the house - all of his grandparents had been born in Ireland. And Sir William was sworn in by Sir Gerald Brennan who was then the chief justice.

“So all of the constitutional officers of Australia at that important moment in modern Australian history were of Irish heritage and I don't think this has happened in any other country. That struck me very forcefully as highlighting the strength of the Irish contribution to Australia.”

O’Brien says Paul and Annita Keating were occasional guests for dinner at the ambassador’s residence.

Keating travelled to Galway in 1991 during a prime ministerial trip. His great-grandparents, Keatings and Larkins, emigrated to Australia from the village of Tynagh in the 1850s.

The former ambassador later became a fan of Liberal prime minister John Howard.

“Mr Howard was also a wonderful person to deal with. I think he was also very conscious of the contribution the Irish have made to Australia,” O’Brien says.

“Mr Howard said to me once, when we met at Macquarie Street in Sydney, ‘this was a place which from time to time produced some of the most Irish governments in the world until you got your independence’.”

O’Brien points out that further along Macquarie Street, outside the Mitchell Library, is the statue of Richard Bourke, the first Irish born governor of NSW. The monument was the first public statue erected in Australia.

“It was the first monument erected by public subscription, he was extraordinarily popular and much loved and introduced the Church Act which promoted religious tolerance and religious understanding,” O’Brien says. “Bourke did a great deal to develop a sense of respect for members of the Aboriginal community and was very committed to developing trade, particularly with South Africa where he had been governor before being appointed governor of NSW.”

After roving the world, O’Brien and his wife have bought a house in Gungahlin, the rapidly growing area on Canberra’s north.

Returning to the ACT after retiring was the obvious choice as three of their children live there, with a fourth in Adelaide.

“The three girls say, of course, they are the wise ones, to have stayed in Canberra,” O’Brien says.

“It is wonderful to come back to Canberra, it’s a great delight. We came back because our children are here and also our grandchildren, but also because this is a very beautiful place. There are few other capitals in the world where the green countryside comes right into the heart of the city.

“There is also a vibrant Irish community in Canberra – the local Friends of Ireland Society is filled with fascinating personalities and great friends, the Irish Club at Weston Creek which continues the great tradition of warm Irish hospitality and great music, and of course the embassy, once our home, now the home of two outstanding representatives of Ireland, Ambassador Noel White and his wife Nessa Delaney.”

In Singapore, his last posting before retiring, he became a promoter of Canberra.

“This is the place that hosts the great institutions of the land, it’s where the parliament sits and the High Court decides, it’s where the great cultural institutions reside and where people gather to work for the interests of Australia,” he says.

“It is a wonderful place and has grown quite substantially. When we left in 2002, the population was around 200,000 and now it’s heading up to 400,000.”

The ordered suburban surroundings are a long way from the challenging environment of the Middle East, where he served for four years from 2002.

Ireland has a strong interest in the Middle East, in history, trade and peacekeeping, and lost almost 50 army peacekeepers in Lebanon.

“When I arrived in Cairo the clouds were gathering, the war was coming and there was a strong sense that that was inevitable,” O’Brien says. “Nobody was going to be particularly sad to see the back of Saddam Hussein but there was a great deal of concern about what would happen afterwards.

“It was a fascinating time to be in the Middle East, an extraordinary time to live on the threshold of great change, as people struggled to deal with the new strategic complexities and with the consequences of conflict. I also spent a lot of time in Sudan as well where Darfur became a major issue.”

While he was visiting young Irish aid workers in the region, he was confronted in a hospital by a young woman.

“She was obviously very distressed and gave me this little bundle - it was her baby who had just died,” he recalls.

“She wanted to be sure it was properly buried … It was a very moving, even traumatic, moment. Here you see the anguish, what some people bizarrely refer to as collateral damage.”

O’Brien also recalls challenging times in London where he served as the embassy’s first secretary in the mid-1970s when the violence in Northern Ireland spilled over into the bombing campaign in Britain which resulted in so much anguish and anger and also impacted on the lives of many across the Irish community.

“It was a very tough time and recalling it now simply highlights the exceptional transformation in the relationship between Britain and Ireland over recent years, a transformation which we have seen symbolised in the historic visit by Queen Elizabeth to Ireland and the more recent state visit by President Higgins to Britain,” he says.

After that he worked in Washington before returning to Dublin again, to be spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs just as the first Irish-Anglo agreement was unveiled.

“It was the catalyst that led to the peace process, beginning in 91-92 and culminating in the Good Friday Agreement,” he says.

His first posting as head of mission was to Warsaw in 1990 which he describes as a dramatic and exciting time.

“The Poles were rebuilding democracy, building an economy, looking very much to the West, looking particularly to the European community,” he says.

“I was one of the last ambassadors to present credentials to the last of the leaders of the old regime, General Jaruzelski, who died recently. I must say he was extraordinarily warm, very different to that image you have of the straight-backed solider in dark glasses - he was both gracious and welcoming.

“After that I went to call on Lech Walesa who would soon be elected president of Poland.”

After the collapse of the coup against Gorbachev, the European Union moved quickly to re-recognise the independence of the Baltic States.

O’Brien was charged with delivering this message on behalf of the Irish government to the governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

“My first call would be to President Landsbergis of Lithuania,” he says. “I remember going to the hotel and feeling extraordinary cold and in the morning when I opened the blinds, I found a bullet hole in the window – there had been fighting, a lot of demonstrations, shots had been fired.

“I drove down the next morning to climb over the barricades and go into the parliament building to call on the newly appointed president of Lithuania. He was a talented musician and composer, a professor of music at the University of Vilnius.”

O’Brien was taken aback when the president asked after the Lithuanian community in Dublin.

“You think very quickly and I assured him, of course they are making a remarkable contribution to the multicultural life of the capital, as I struggled to remember meeting a member of the Lithuanian community in Dublin,” he says. “Today I would have the joy of knowing many who have arrived over more recent years.”

In Australia O’Brien became involved with Professor John Maloney at ANU and the commemoration of Eureka.

“Most of those who died at the Eureka Stockade were Irish,” he says. “In 1999 the Irish of Eureka were commemorated in a magnificent memorial created by two talented Irish sculptors, Joan and Charlie Smith, who represent another tradition of contribution to the artistic and cultural life of Australia,

“Among the literary leaders of Australia, of course Tom Keneally stands out. He wrote a really beautiful and remarkable book about Ireland, Irish Australia and the Great Famine, called The Great Shame.

“I got to know Tom very well and I had the great honour of launching the book in Canberra. Tom has remained close and has been extraordinarily helpful in promoting the Chair of Irish Studies at the University of NSW.

“There was the much missed and exceptionally talented Christopher Koch from Tasmania who is, I think, seven-eighths Irish, [seven great-grand parents born in Ireland] like yourself, Ross.

“As well, I did a tour along the east coast with David Malouf who won the first International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his wonderful book, Remembering Babylon, based on an Irish incident - the story of Finnegan and his rescue from drowning by members of Queensland’s Aboriginal community, a story which suggests that in one respect at least the Irish community in Queensland did arrive there in Finnegans Wake!”

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