-
In the Teeth of the Tiger
- University of Notre Dame Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
C H A P T E R 2 In the Teeth of the Tiger On a visit to Galway, our daughter wanted to go to McDonalds, which in fact was a Supermacs . . . indistinguishable from McDonalds in every substantial respect. The confusion of McDonalds and Supermacs, even to the keen eyes of a child, epitomizes a broad historical process of homogenization of Irish culture and identity wherein the local is transformed so that it resembles the global. (Kuhling and Keohane 2002) Flanagan 02 6/5/07 1:39 PM Page 36 37 In the 1990s the U.S. investment firm Morgan Stanley coined the now famous term “Celtic Tiger,” dramatizing a remarkable fact: the expanding Irish economy had been outperforming the rapidly growing Asian Tigers for years. Ireland’s astonishing economic growth has continued through the end of the decade and on into the present century. What makes this so noteworthy is the fact that Ireland had long been one of the poorest countries in Europe, with economic and job growth lagging behind those of the other nations in the region. Then, in the space of a decade, a total transformation occurred, as explosive growth translated, for lucky participants, into some of the highest living standards in the region and in the world. Outside of Ireland the advance has been celebrated with singleminded jubilation. Finally the end had come to the long and dreary sweep of Irish history, which featured the suffering of the Irish at home, the crippling colonial legacy that had left the small independent nation economically off-balance. Generation after generation of young and ambitious people had left to make their lives in other countries, economic exiles driven from a homeland that could not compete with the rest of the world in offering the prospect of a decent living. Not everyone is celebrating the New Ireland, however. Within the country the last decade and a half of prosperity has left some division and controversy. Sure enough, many have prospered, but large numbers of people did not benefit, and they faced ever-higher living costs as prices were driven upward by the growing incomes of the newly affluent. Flanagan 02 6/5/07 1:39 PM Page 37 [3.87.11.93] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:18 GMT) The proportion of poor people in the country remained extraordinarily large in comparison to other European Union states. Many believe that government tax and spending policies, which were designed to promote economic growth, favored the wealthy and the international corporations to an excessive degree. Paul Sweeney’s 1998 book, The Celtic Tiger: Ireland’s Economic Miracle Explained, is generally considered a balanced account of Ireland ’s economic growth and uneven prosperity. He attributes Ireland’s success to a set of conditions in the international marketplace that fit nicely with emerging Irish government policy in the late 1980s. In Sweeney’s terms, these external and internal conditions formed a “benign conjuncture” to produce the European economic miracle of the age. We recall the 1990s as the decade when the electronic information and communications revolution took off worldwide, enhancing the demand for personal computers, software development, and related services . At the same time the enormous marketplace formed by the European Union was about to begin reaching its potential as a free-trade zone with a common currency. Multinational computer and software manufacturers along with several other industries were poised to jump into the European market, and they all needed a regional headquarters. An Irish government coalition had just undertaken measures to offer foreign investors an inviting, tax-sheltered, incentive-rich, and stable economic environment. A revamped telecommunications infrastructure, a highly educated and native English-speaking population, and a reoriented educational system geared to providing graduates with in-demand technical skills rounded out the Irish attraction. The multinationals came, including Dell, Microsoft, HewlettPackard , IBM, and Kodak. In the ten years preceding the mid 90s, computer-related exports tripled, while pharmaceutical and chemical exports increased six times, and even the long-standing trade in the export of food, beverage, and agricultural products doubled. Suddenly Ireland was importing labor, and young natives were staying home and going to work, a good number of them earning technical and management wages on the international scale. By 1996 foreign companies were responsible for a sizable portion (45 percent) of the expansion of industrial jobs and for 71 percent of Irish-produced exports. According to Sweeney, the foreign corporate presence brought more than investment...