Search results
5 Immigration in Celtic Tiger and post-Celtic Tiger novels Margarita Estévez-Saá The history of Ireland and of the Irish is full of stories of deprival, to the extent that they were, for a long time, divested of houses, estates, land, country, and nation, and forced to emigrate. Irish literature, inevitably, has bore witness to this history of deprivation recreating it once and again in an attempt to overcome that trauma, by means of the transformation, reorientation, or re-evaluation of the experience of loss (Balaev, 2008: 164). Recent examples by
8 Immigration and the Celtic Tiger Immigration and the Celtic Tiger Bryan Fanning Introduction The lack of substantial opposition to, or even sustained political debate about, post- 1990s immigration in the Irish case contrasted strongly with what occurred in several other European countries. The Republic of Ireland quickly and quietly transformed from a mono-ethnic nation State, one characterized by historical antipathy towards indigenous minorities such as Jews, Protestants and Travellers, into one with a comparatively large immigrant population (Fanning
4 Welcome to the Celtic Tiger: racism, immigration and the state STEVE LOYAL The ‘Celtic Tiger’ has come to provide a convenient shorthand for Ireland’s prosperous and rapidly growing economy. Like all metaphors, it occludes as much as it includes; as a way of representing, it is just as much a way of misrepresenting. The implication of a prosperity in which ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ masks the growth of poverty and inequality and generalises what is, in fact, only a restricted experience of newly found wealth, within a broader context of class and gender
5 Popular music and the Celtic Tiger Gerry Smyth Sing when you’re winning On 14 June 2012, the Republic of Ireland soccer team was comprehensively beaten 4–0 at the UEFA Euro Football Championships by the eventual winners, Spain. During an on-the-pitch post-match interview for the UK’s ITV network, the Irish midfielder Keith Andrews praised the quality of the opposition as well as the ‘brilliant’ support of the Irish fans, who continued en masse to sing ‘The Fields of Athenry’ throughout the final minutes of the match. Coverage then returned to the studio
2 Macroeconomic policy in the Celtic Tiger: a critical reassessment DENIS O’HEARN The miraculous turnaround in the fortunes of the southern Irish economy during the 1990s fooled most experts. The upturn began in the early 1990s, following one of the worst economic periods in the history of the Irish state. The economy then ‘took off’ in 1994 for seven years of sustained high growth that earned the Irish Republic the popular name of the ‘Celtic Tiger’. The Celtic Tiger emerged from a historic expansion in the United States that was centred on the information
5 Irish women and the Celtic Tiger economy SINÉAD KENNEDY The term ‘Celtic Tiger’ has connotations that extend well beyond the realm of the purely economic. It has, for instance, become a metaphor for a new national consensus that constantly reminds us how ‘we have never had it so good’. This chapter takes issue with this consensus and argues instead that, while the recent boom in the Irish Republic has produced enormous wealth for a small minority, the majority of Irish people have benefited little from this apparent economic miracle. In fact, there has been a
2 The Celtic Tiger and the new Irish religious market The Celtic Tiger and the religious market Catherine Maignant Many assume that the Celtic Tiger has devoured religion. However, a careful examination of data does not fully support this analysis. In the view of recent developments, it may even be argued that religiosity remained part of life for most Irish people throughout the Celtic Tiger years. John Waters once commented that in spite of Ireland’s disaffection with the Catholic Church ‘there [was] no such thing as an ex-Catholic’ in Ireland (Waters 1997, p
17 Immigration, the Celtic Tiger and the economic crisis One of the legacies of the Celtic Tiger period of rapid economic growth has been the transformation of the Republic of Ireland (hereafter Ireland) into a multi-ethnic society with a large permanent immigrant population. The 2006 census identified 419,733 non-Irish citizens as living in the country. By 2011, when the next census was taken, this number had risen to 544,357. Ireland’s immigrant population seemed to have increased during the economic crisis. In fact it peaked in 2008 at over 575,000, or 12
5 Political theologies in the wake of the Celtic Tiger In the wake of the sudden death of the Celtic Tiger Irish business leaders called for the suspension of normal partisan democratic politics and the formation of a one-party government with the will to make crucial decisions necessary to deal with the ‘exceptional circumstances’ occasioned by this ‘national emergency’. The government, they charged, was drifting aimlessly, unable to clarify what needed to be done and unwilling to rule. What was needed, Ireland’s businessmen claimed, was ‘an all party
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.