Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Moving beyond the Legacies of the Celtic Tiger

Contents:

Author Info

  • Peadar Kirby, Director, Institute for the Study of Knowledge in Society and Professor of International Politics and Public Policy, University of Limerick and Pádraig Carmody, Lecturer in Geography and Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin.
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    The Celtic Tiger boom, and now its collapse, has been largely analysed through the lens of neo-classical economics and modernisation theory with much attention being paid to economic issues such as the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the need for cost competitiveness, or social issues such as the liberalisation of values and practices, upward social mobility, increased living standards and debates about social polarisation. While these lens offer many valuable and valid insights, they tend to neglect the particular and distinctive structural characteristics of the way the Irish economy and Irish society have developed, and the reasons for these. This paper takes a more structuralist approach, identifying the ‘Irish model’ that emerged during the boom years, a particular form of structured power. The paper places this ‘model’ in the wider context of the emergence of financialisation as a driver of a particular kind of global economy. Focusing attention on the role of the financial sector in structuring and driving this so-called ‘new economy’, allows the Irish boom to be more clearly and accurately identified as one example of national development that was profoundly shaped by the flows, the power and the values of financialisation, though with a particular Irish hue reflecting long-standing features of Irish society such as the role of property speculation and so-called ‘developers’. The paper then interrogates the legacies of the boom derived from the multiple restructurings that have transformed Ireland. In the light of these legacies, the paper concludes by offering a reading of possible future scenarios as they can now be identified amid the debates and politics of the post-boom crisis.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/documents/discussion/pdfs/iiisdp300.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by IIIS in its series The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series with number iiisdp300.

    as in new window
    Length:
    Date of creation: 09 2009
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp300

    Note: Length:
    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: 01
    Phone: 00 353 1 896 3888
    Fax: 00 353 1 896 3939
    Web page: http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords:

    References

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
    as in new window
    1. Barrett, Alan & Kearney, Ide & Goggin, Jean, 2009. "Quarterly Economic Commentary, Spring 2009," Forecasting Report, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number QEC20091, January -.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp300

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Eva Mateo).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.