Artane

FREQUENTLY termed the 'Celtic Tiger' for its flourishing economy, Ireland's growth has been spectacular over the past decade and so swift and dynamic that it has essentially leaped from an agriculture to an information technology focused economy, bypassing in the process the industrial revolution. Its recent prosperity is primarily based on high-tech manufacture fuelled by the plants of numerous electronics and software mammoths such as Intel, Digital Sun Microsystems, Dell, Motorola, Oracle, Microsoft and pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson. These companies, largely American, were attracted to Ireland by generous government incentives, proximity to a vast European market, and a highly educated workforce. Ireland's reform of the educational structure, rendering it more appropriate for the technological and global economic marketplace, has also been a major factor in the Celtic Tiger's success. Moreover, Ireland, whose economic well-being was not so long ago inextricably tied to that of Britain, now, as a member of the EU, looks more to a wider Europe for its economic and social advancement. Ireland joined the European Economic Community in 1973 and over the years has benefited greatly by its membership and not least by the receipt of plentiful money from richer members in the form of 'Structural Funds', intended to assist poorer, less developed EU nations become more economically and market competitive. EU membership has also helped build greater confidence, a stronger international profile, and a more global outlook. Greater participation on the European and world stage together with the modernizing effects of the media, more travel, greatly increased exposure to multicultural forces have changed irrevocably Ireland's traditional inward-looking mind-set. Earlier this year the influential journal Foreign Policy awarded Ireland the title of the world's most globalized nation.

Ireland is certainly richer than ever before. Though I lived my first three decades in Ireland, being born and bred in `buttered'--as the Irish say--in Dublin, I have spent most of the past twenty years in the United States. I have returned to Ireland infrequently. It is to be expected, after being abroad so long, that I should find Ireland changed; however, the transformations have been particularly evident. The shops are more chic. There are more hotels, many of very high quality. The cuisine for a long time the butt of so many jokes is now sophisticated and there are numerous excellent restaurants. The cars are sleeker, the fashion more stylish, the pubs, once dark and gloomy but now modernized and inviting, are full. The people are more cosmopolitan. Money is much in evidence. Tourists are everywhere, Ireland, especially Dublin, being considered a trendy place to visit. Cranes, sign of feverish building, clutter the skyline.

However, as recently as the 1980s economic prospects were so bad that tens of thousands of Irish emigrated to the US, some legally and many as undocumented aliens. Numerous others took the traditional emigrant's path to Britain while others worked as Gastarbeiter on the Continent. A high percentage of these emigrants were well-qualified university graduates, whose loss rendered the already stagnant Irish economy even more precarious. However, with the booming 1990s emigration has drastically declined. Though some highly educated and skilled individuals still leave for better paid opportunities abroad, with Ireland's unemployment remaining low the Irish are tending to stay at home. Indeed, statistics for the late 1990s reveal that thousands more Irish returned to Ireland than emigrated, a trend that the Irish Government is very actively encouraging. Moreover, many Britons and Continentals have flocked to a thriving Ireland seeking work.

In matters of religion, sex, gender equality the Irish have also witnessed great changes. The influence of the Catholic Church has declined quite dramatically in recent decades. While a greater proportion of Irish, overwhelmingly Catholic, attend weekly Mass and partake of the sacraments of Communion and Confession than most of their Continental counterparts, there is a growing refusal of numerous Irish, both old and young, to accept certain Church teachings on such topics as divorce, contraception, premarital sex, homosexuality. Abortion, though still highly controversial and restrictive as we shall see, is no longer universally condemned. Many are not shy about advocating that clergy marry and that there be women priests. Numerous couples live together (including the Prime Minister) and have children without the authority of Catholic marriage, something that would have been considered very risque a couple of decades ago. The number of single mothers has spectacularly increased. While few would welcome an in crease in failed marriages, many regard it as an advance that more couples, whether divorcing or not, go their separate ways. In the past when marriages failed husband and wife frequently stayed together, often citing that it was better for the children, but also because of fear of the local church and of shame in the community. It is likely, though statistics are hard to come by, that husband and wife remaining together in a very unhappy marriage resulted in high incidences of spousal abuse. Women have certainly made advances, gaining much equality in the workplace and most areas of Irish society. It is not surprising that the present and the last Presidents have been women, Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson respectively. The stay-at-home Irish wife and mother is a vanishing breed.

During the 1990s the media regaled the Irish populace with an astounding series of scandals involving sexual abuse of minors as well as other involvements by the clergy in sexual activities, both heterosexual and homosexual. Particularly well publicized were the stories of the affair between Bishop Eamon Casey and Annie Murphy and of how the well known 'singing-priest' Fr. Michael Cleary had two children with his mistress Phyllis Hamilton. Though some of the public may have enjoyed the schadenfreude, the overwhelming emotion expressed was one of anger and condemnation. There was also a spate of reports of harsh physical punishment and assaults by the Irish Christian Brothers on the boys under their charge in Dublin's Artane Industrial School. In March 1998 the Brothers took the unusual step of taking out newspaper advertisements in which they apologized for their maltreatment of minors and youths. Not surprising in a secularizing society, the number of priests, nuns, brothers is in steep decline with a dramat ic decrease in entrants to the religious life over the past decade or so. Consequently, the average age of the Irish clergy is tending to get higher and higher. Moreover, gone are the days when a refusal by political, business, and cultural leaders to heed the bidding of the hierarchy in various societal matters would have been anathema. Personal conscience has taken the place of blind adherence to clerical authority. Nevertheless, the clergy still exert distinct influence in diverse facets of Irish society, not least of which is the educational system, where they exert a dominant role at the primary school level as well as a very influential role at the secondary level.

Ireland's abortion laws are the most severe in Europe, with the possible exception of Malta. Banned by Ireland's 1937 Constitution, abortion has been the subject of five national plebiscites over the past twenty years. In March 2002 a referendum which sought to eliminate a 1992 Supreme Court loophole permitting abortion to women considered a suicide risk if pregnancy continued was defeated by a margin of fewer than 11,000 votes out of 1.2 million cast. The referendum, if passed, would have paved the way for legislation making it a crime, with a twelve-year maximum sentence, to assist or perform an abortion unless considered medically essential. Clearly more debate and possibly legislation will ensue, though it may be hoped that this complex topic will in the future be treated in a less confused, politically expedient, and morally hypocritical manner than has been evident in recent years. It is important to remember that while controversy continues, as many as 7000 women annually, or nearly 20 a day, travel to Britain to have an abortion. Perhaps one in ten Irish pregnancies ends in an abortion, a rate that is higher than certain nations where abortion is legal.

The Irish have been censured for increasing rudeness, though reports of such are necessarily anecdotal. While such qualities as sociability and general friendliness are still patently evident among the Irish there may now, in Dublin in particular, be somewhat less responsiveness to others, more discourtesy, less willingness to take time and help one's neighbour. This may be a natural, if disagreeable, consequence of the recent concentrated economic and social changes that have led some to give higher precedence to their own financial success and getting ahead than to the realization of more traditional community goals and values. A far more serious charge is one of escalating racial intolerance. The Irish have traditionally congratulated themselves for having an open, welcoming society where racism was well nigh non-existent. Certainly, the Irish have tended to be supporters of the underdog and over the years have strongly championed such causes as that of East Timor and South Africa's anti-Apartheid campaign . Still, a cynic might observe that some Irish find it easier to support those of different ethnic backgrounds who live far away. Others might wonder why the Irish Government waited over 30 years, until January 2001, to ratify the UN's International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. At any rate, many would agree that the frequently virulent antagonism shown to the itinerants or Travellers, Ireland's Gypsies, is nothing other than racism. From the nineteenth century onwards Irish society has discriminated bitterly against the Travellers, denouncing them variously as thieves, beggars, drunkards, denizens of filth and disease. Today it is often politically and socially acceptable to attempt to move them from settled urban areas and from the outskirts of towns and villages.

Other racially intolerant sentiments are surfacing. In recent years there has been an influx of other nationalities seeking to take advantage of burgeoning job opportunities. In addition, there has been an ever increasing incursion of asylumseekers and refugees attracted by Ireland's relatively lenient refugee and asylum laws, as well as by its growing prosperity. The largest number of asylum seekers come from Nigeria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Moldova, Congo-Kinshasa, Russia and Algeria. The result is that Ireland, not so long ago one of Europe's most homogenous societies, is now ever more multicultural and has witnessed an accompanying rise in racism. There have been a plethora of discriminatory incidents, for example, taunting of foreigners in Muslim dress, physical assaults on Africans, abusive phone calls and hate mail, web sites spouting racist and fascist views. There have been incidents of pregnant black women being verbally abused and accused of wishing to have their babies born in Ireland for cit izenship purposes. The law states that children born in Ireland are citizens and residency is usually granted to the parent or parents. Refugees are frequently termed freeloaders and spongers by resentful Irish, even by certain politicians. Some Irish suspect that these foreigners are taking jobs and are benefiting from social security. However, few asylum-seekers are legally allowed to work while their applications are being processed, a procedure that can take two years, and while they are given some money to support themselves, it is only a derisory sum. It is indicative of the severity of the problem that at least one travel book has warned tourists to Ireland that intolerance to minorities and racism are prevalent. A related widespread complaint is that the Gardai, the Irish police, have not been as active as they might have been in investigating the perpetrators of racist offences and that the Government has been extremely remiss in failing to recognize the magnitude of the problem. Of course, there is a certain irony and distinct hypocrisy in this growing racial prejudice. Over many decades the Irish themselves emigrated in their millions to the US and Britain to escape economic deprivation and oppression and frequently suffered racial taunts, stereotyping and bigotry. With their own history of being discriminated against it might be thought that they themselves would exhibit fewer racist attitudes.

In a June 2001 referendum the Irish populace refused to endorse the Nice Treaty, signed in December 2000, one of whose main provisions was to facilitate increasing the membership of the EU. This has caused major embarrassment to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's government and widespread dismay in other EU nations. For the Treaty to be made law it must be ratified by all fifteen member nations and the Irish 'no' vote means that the plan to bring in about twelve other European nations becomes very problematic. It has been adduced that many Irish were apathetic about the referendum -- only 35 per cent voted, that some were apprehensive of an evolving European superstate, that there was inadequate communication about the specific issues, that the government failed to campaign hard enough to secure a 'yes' vote. Some of the naysayers were undoubtedly guilty of selfish motives disliking that the days of receiving aid from wealthier EU member states were over and that now it would be Ireland's turn to be the donor of subsid ies and largess to new, mainly Eastern European EU members. Perhaps it is partly in response to such views that Chris Patten, EU External Affairs Commissioner, has stated that enlargement is an important moral and not a mere economic issue. However, it is probable that many Irish 'no' voters were worried that the implications of the Treaty concerning the advancement of the EU's common foreign and security policies would adversely affect Ireland's traditional policy of neutrality.

Ireland has a long history of being a neutral nation, though at times the precise ramifications of that neutrality have revealed partiality. For example, being neutral during World War Two was in effect an anti-British stance, and though officially neutral during the Cold War, Catholic Ireland, fearful of the atheistic USSR, clearly sided with US policies. Today Ireland's neutrality is also somewhat ambiguous. In 1999 Ireland became the 25th member of the Partnership for Peace (PfP), a programme that acts as the basis for practical security cooperation between NATO and individual partner countries. Ireland is also committed to participating in the European Rapid Reaction Forces. Some Irish are leery of these actions and contend that any involvement by Ireland in the development by the EU into a superpower with the military might to back its agenda ought to be rejected. Others dismiss the view that just because Ireland has recently benefited greatly in the economic sphere by its collaboration with Europe and t he United States it should then join with them in military affairs. It is likely that the neutrality debate will continue. The issues are less easy today than they once were, especially during the Cold War. Now in this era of global anti-terrorism policies and practices many find it more difficult to define neutrality and to state against whom precisely Ireland should be neutral. At any rate, presently it is expected that another referendum on the Nice Treaty will be held this month, much to the exasperation of many of those who originally voted 'no'. Some have asked the government: 'which part of "no" do you not understand?'

The Celtic Tiger has been very good to many Irish. However, not everyone has profited. Analogous to the effect of Margaret Thatcher's policies in England, Ireland's recent economic spurt has certainly made large numbers better off, but also left many others relatively untouched, primarily those less well educated and with fewer skills. Dublin has poor inner city areas and suburbs where society's marginalized live in poverty, neglect, and, sometimes, crime and drug infested environments. Dublin's Temple Bar, a district of trendy bars, restaurants, and hotels recently built with great infusions of money to recreate a Parisian Left Bank ambiance, is within easy walking distance of old rundown drug-cursed neighbourhoods that have changed little from the days of O'Casey, maybe even of Swift. But the dilemma is not necessarily a matter of jobs in this nation of low unemployment. Rather a major problem is that the financial gap between the prosperous and poorer classes has been widening. A very high proportion of th e workforce is lowly paid, the differential between the very high income of a small minority and the remarkably low income of the majority of Irish workers being among the highest in the Western world. A related egregious problem for many in Dublin is the exceptional high price of real estate. From about 1995 onwards most Dublin houses at least doubled in value, many tripled. Property owners naturally have done well, many becoming wealthier than they ever thought possible, at least in paper money terms. However, the boom has adversely affected a multitude. Lower income people are finding it impossible to purchase their own home. Rent payers have also been particularly hard hit as the price of flat and house rents have escalated. Not least of the problems is the fact that more and more of those who are employed in Dublin are being forced to live in satellite towns and commute forty or fifty miles or more to work. Such travel distances may not be onerous to an American. However, they are something quite new and distressing for many Dubliners.

It seems that the rapid development that typified booming 1990s' Ireland has finally ended. Now inflation is high, unemployment, though still historically low, is increasing and the nation's economic prospects appear more and more precarious. Nore has Ireland been immune to Enron-style debacles. Earlier this year the large Irish American pharmaceutical company, Elan, was accused of major accounting irregularities. Ireland's largest bank, the Allied Irish Bank, suffered an insider fraud of almost $700 million. Much of the Celtic Tiger's success depended on foreign investments. With the dramatic downturn in the global economy, Ireland also faces a harsher future.

Nevertheless, though manifest problems still pervade twenty-first century Ireland, only the most blinkered critic would deny that it has made significant political, economic, and social advances in a very short time period. Not so long ago a predominantly rural, sectarian, inward looking, conservative, and economically impoverished nation, Ireland has developed into a modern, international, increasingly liberal, relatively affluent country which more and more understands the import of the global viewpoint and leaves its insularity to its geographic essence. Perhaps its growing cosmopolitanism is Ireland's greatest change, an attribute, however, that some consider entails a definite weakness. Its language now only spoken by a very small proportion of the population, much of its culture heavily influenced by that of America and Britain, its economy almost totally dependent on those of Europe and the US, Ireland appears less and less a distinct society with unique national characteristics. Never has Yeats's old plaint 'Romantic Ireland's dead and gone' been more true. But perhaps many attributes of the good old days of 'Romantic Ireland' are not worth nostalgia.

Dr Brendan A. Rapple is a Librarian at Boston College, Massachusetts.

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