Dublin could be heaven with coffee at eleven…or so the song once said. Well better make that a double skimmed latte a little closer to seven…AM!
 

The idyllic days of strolls in Dublin’s Stephen’s Green may seem like a distant memory as the streets and cities of modern day Ireland beat to a different drum with a pulse that is palpable.  Today, Irish cities are as diverse and cosmopolitan as London, New York and Toronto, teaming with a vibrant, dynamic, energy amidst an eclectic milieu where wine bars are taking their place beside pubs, and sushi is competing with spuds as the cuisine du jour.

Direct your eyes upwards to capture a glimpse of the soaring construction cranes casting silhouettes on the Dublin skyline.  The Luas light rail whizzes by as the traffic congestion chokes every artery in Dublin during rush hour.  This is modern day Ireland and the times are undoubtedly a changin’.  But like the construction boom that has accompanied and perpetuated the recent economic fortunes of Ireland, the age of the Celtic Tiger can equally be remembered as the era when we rebuilt Eireann.  Today Ireland is undergoing a social and cultural renaissance that stands to surpass its recent economic transfiguration.  We are a country that is being revamped, redesigned and reworked.  Once the runt of the EU litter, Ireland is now the makeover country of Europe, and the changes cut far deeper than just an economic nip-and-tuck.

Less than a generation ago, the era of the Celtic Tiger seemed impossible.  In the 30 years since Ireland joined the European Union, we have undergone an economic transformation of magnanimous proportions.  Labelled the ‘poorest of the rich’ by The Economist when we joined the EU in 1973, Ireland’s national income was a mere 64% of the EU average.  We were a peripheral nation in every sense of the word, unlikely ever to become the life and soul of the European party.  For 23 of the 30 years that we’ve been members of the EU, Ireland has had the highest or second highest level of unemployment.  By the end of the 1980s, the Irish economy was stagnating, unemployment was skyrocketing, and we were buckling under the pressure of a massive foreign debt.  To use the historic words of President de Valera, the dark days of the late 1980s saw us once again raising our children like our cattle – for export.

But like any good construction project, Ireland was a ‘work in progress’.  The planning began under the watchful eye of Dr. TK Whitaker in the late 1950s when he proposed opening up the economy to foreign direct investment.  Once this blueprint graduated from the drawing board, the IDA, by adopting a policy of industrialization by invitation, successfully lured over 1050 international companies to Ireland over the following four decades.  The keystone used to fortify the foundation was the revamping of the Irish education system to meet the needs of industry and the internal structures were secured during a serious fiscal revision and commitment to social partnership, which began in the 1980s.  And thus the contracting began, with the work being carried out by an Irish army of young, highly skilled graduates who fuelled the fortunes of foreign companies locating in Ireland and transformed the Irish industrial landscape in the process.

In the past three decades, we have gone from farming the potato field to fabricating the computer chip.  Chemicals and computers now represent 70% of Irish exports, while farming, which employed 24% of the workforce in 1973 now only employs 7%.  Labelled ‘Europe’s Shining Light’ by The Economist in 2001, our national income was 120% of the EU average in 2003 with unemployment as low as 4%.  Over the past thirty years, the population has grown by almost 1 million to just under 4 million, and Ireland’s GDP per capita is now the second highest in Europe.  As if that wasn’t enough, The Economist also recently ranked Ireland as the best country in the world to live.

Progress, however, has come with a price.  Amidst staggering economic prosperity, the rising tide hasn’t lifted all boats and laments are growing amongst city dwellers about the extortionate cost of living.  This phase of Ireland’s reconstruction has attracted new inhabitants and Ireland is now a net importer of people for the first time in its recent history.  Almost 6% of the Irish population are non-nationals and although still a relatively small number, Ireland is now grappling with what it means to be a multicultural, multiethnic, multi-religious society.  We find ourselves at a cultural crossroads, one where the comely maidens of de Valera’s dreams are certainly not to be found.  A nation of emigrants and exiles has now become the land of opportunity, as a new breed of pilgrim make their way to feast at the economic table of Ireland.

Unfortunately, as the Irish are finding out, material success can have a social downside as well.  Once a country held firmly in the clutches of a conservative Catholic church, the demise of that institution, coupled with a newfound wealth, has shaken the foundations of traditional Irish society.  Suicide is at record levels, and the number of homicides has increased from under 10 per year in the early seventies to over 50 by the year 2000.  As the government’s ombudsman and information commissioner recently said ‘Divorce was meant to be for the deeply unhappy, not the mildly bored’ referring to the number of divorcees which increased from 9,800 in 1996 to 35,000 in 2002.  In that period, the number of children living with cohabitating parents increased from 23,000 to 51,700 and the number of single parents increased by 88% in the ten years from 1992-2003.  Hard to believe, all this in a country where just a generation ago such ‘shenanigans’ would have been the talk of the town. Mobile phones are now ubiquitous and ‘texting’ has all but become a national language.  With the erosion of traditional values, increasing violence, inequitable distribution of wealth, soaring property prices and urban sprawl, “Romantic Ireland” may indeed be dead and gone and O’Leary would likely be turning in his grave if he could see what’s taken its place in the wake of economic success and burgeoning secularisation.

So as we embark on the month of March, the traditional season of the Irish, we watch as millions around the world come to celebrate their Irish heritage and culture.  It’s an ideal time to reflect on exactly what it means to be Irish in the world today.  When Ireland looks in the mirror, the reflection it now sees is decidedly different from that of thirty years ago.  And we have much to be proud of.  For once we have cast aside the shackles of our troubled economic history and taken our place among the industrial powerhouses of Europe. We are the international poster child for economic development and a role model for many nations, particularly the new EU members of Eastern Europe.

The time has come to draw up a new blueprint that reflects the mosaic of modern Ireland.  What Ireland now needs are architects for the road ahead, visionaries who can preserve the riches of our cultural past and capture them for our future. The recent changes we’ve experienced, although stark, are merely a natural progression in the economic and cultural evolution of our Nation. Our future success lies in our ability to capture the best of our past, couple it with the best of our present, to create the best of our future.  We need a higher degree of security and comfort in our new global identity that will propel us towards a more inclusive, tolerant society that will sustain Ireland’s international competitiveness and recast the definition of modern ‘Irishness’. 

Although some may feel that the new Ireland, with its major extensions and retro modern interior has as much stability of identity as the departure lounge of an international airport, this is fast becoming orthodoxy.  As we move onto the next phase of the reconstruction project, there lies one certainty – The choices we make today for the maintenance and improvement of our social, cultural and economic structure will impact the Ireland we inhabit tomorrow.  Let’s make good choices, for the times they are a changin’.

Dr. Anita M. Sands
asands@andrew.cmu.edu