"The economics of utter idiocy": The Rise and Demise of the Celtic Tiger

The essay discusses the "rise and demise" of the Celtic Tiger, drawing a trajectory of success of the nation that went, in James Joyce's words, "up like a rocket and down like a stick." As the most globalized nation in the world, Ireland produced a host of global-village idiots, who, through greed and corruption, killed the Celtic Tiger within a few short years, bursting the housing bubble and plunging the country into steep economic decline. The essay focuses on both the historical and economic background of this trend as well as its echo in literary works such as Brian FrieFs far-too-neglected play The Mundy Scheme, Tom Mac Intyre's Only an Apple (2009), Anne Hagerty's One Day as a Tiger (1997), Chris Binchy's third novel, Open-handed (2008), and Paul Murray's An Evening of Long Goodbyes (2003) and Skippy Dies (2010).