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This book explores the issue of a collective representation of Ireland after the sudden death of the 'Celtic Tiger' and introduces the aesthetic idea that runs throughout. The focus is on the idea articulated by W. B. Yeats in his famous poem 'The Second Coming'. The book also explores the symbolic order and imaginative structure, the meanings and values associated with house and home, the haunted houses of Ireland's 'ghost estates' and the fiscal and moral foundations of the collective household. It examines the sophisticated financial instruments derived from mortgage-backed securities that were a lynchpin of global financialization and the epicentre of the crash, the question of the fiscal and moral foundations of the collective household of Europe. A story about fundamental values and principles of fairness and justice is discussed, in particular, the contemporary conflict that reiterates the ancient Irish mythic story of the Tain. The book suggests correspondences between Plato's Republic and the Irish republic in the deformations and devolution of democracy into tyranny. It traces a red thread from the predicament of the ancient Athenians to contemporary Ireland in terms of the need to govern pleonexia, appetites without limits. The political and economic policies and practices of Irish development, the designation of Ireland's 'tax free zones', are also discussed. Finally, the ideal type of person who has been emerging under the auspices of the neoliberal revolution is imagined.
first invaders of Ireland in about 2000BC, made their landfall on the Beara Peninsula, it was necessary for their bard, Amergin, to chant the land into existence so that they could set foot on shore. Similarly in modern Ireland we can identify precisely the place and time of the mystical inaugural rite that initiated the Mythic Age of Globalization. In this instance the verba concepta, repeated as a mantra ever since, is ‘Tax-Free Zone’ –and more recently ‘Defend our low corporate tax rate’.1 The verba concepta, the divine logos, states the law, the new commandment