Not given but negotiated, as a part of EU treaties. Similarly to the subsidies for French farmers or the access to Irish waters for Spanish fishermen.
That's not to diminish Ireland's accomplishments in the least. The combination of a well-educated population and speaking (something akin to) the English language alone made them predestined to catch up eventually. Being able to engage with their former enemies in the Good Friday Agreement was also exemplary and undoubtedly returned fantastic dividends, both economically as well as morally.
But to deny that being part of the world's largest free trade block was an essential part, or to insist that when Ireland joined 40 years ago the EU was expecting, and motivated by, any short-term financial interests just seems...unnecessary petty?
Because there's nothing dishonorable in that story. Nor are those two aspects contradictory.
Germany does pretty well with an origin story far darker: not only to have started far lower than Ireland has ever been, and receiving far more support at a time where the idea of short-term returns were laughable (the Marshall Plan). But to have caused that same miserable situation pretty much single-handedly, and being the recipient of gratuitous support by essentially the same countries they had devastated in that mad crusade less than a decade prior.