Resumo de From Bust To Boom In Ireland

FROM BUST
TO BOOM IN IRELAND

BY: VIDYA
SUBRAHMANIAM

Abstract by:
srjasfer

From crippling
life-consuming poverty and famine through long years of strife and sectarian
tension to peace, bliss and dazzling prosperity not to mention
recognition as
possibly the most globalised economy in the world Ireland's
rags-to-riches
conflict-to truce story is hard to beat. Today this tiny island
Republic of
only four million people can claim finally to have found the proverbial
pot of
gold at the end of what for a eons looked like a never-ending tunnel.
Nineteenth-century
undivided Ireland
was a picture of devastation stalked as it was by death and
disease food
riots and mass eviction. The Great Potato Famine saw a million
people, or nearly one eighth of the entire population, die of
starvation and
epidemic disease; another two million emigrated under conditions of
extreme
distress - as destitute travellers, as stowaways hiding in barrels
packed up to
their chins with provisions. The migrant deluge was directed mainly
towards the
United States which to quote President Clinton, himself part
Irish became a bacon of hope for the Irish people, a land of
promise ...where they
could build a better life for themselves and their children. In
later
years, the immigrants were to form the backbone of the nearly 15 per
cent
American population of Irish descent. Artificial
Tragedy: The devastating potato blight of 1845 was the immediate cause
of the
famine. Yet in many ways it was an artificial tragedy brought about by
a
combination of ruthless absentee landlordism and callous governance.
The
dominant economic doctrine of the time was laissez-faire, or the belief
that
government must not interfere in the economy. Consequently, the
British
Government terminated the soup kitchens that sustained the poor and
stood by aslandlords
embarked on a mass eviction of the hungry and the pauperized.
Speaking in the House of Lords in March 1846, Lord Broughman strongly
defended
the evictions: If (the landlord should) choose to stand on his right
the
tenants must be taught by the strong arm of the law that they had no
power to
oppose or resist...property would be valueless and capital would no
longer be a
cultivation of the land if the policy, and as a bureaucrat says: Once
unprofitable.
You get out of business. Of course today's Ireland
is quite the toast of Europe, a booming bustling country, revelling in
its new found wealth and prosperity. And it is inviting
international attention for the ease with which it has put the conflict
years
behind it. The Irish
problem, a euphemism for Northern
Ireland's violent nationalist struggle is no
longer a problem. From Dublin to Cork Galway and Limerick
the refrain is that the conflict is over' Incredible? More
unbelievably it is
a maturity achieved without the Republic giving up its dream of a
united Ireland If
anything, Irish nationalism is a stronger force visible among other
things in
the continuing loathing of all things British and in the elite rush for
Irish
language schools. Contradiction: A bigger contradiction is undoubtedly
the
strange marriage between Irish. Nationalism and globalization. Irish
Ministers and
bureaucrats never tire of telling visitors that their country is the
most remobilized
in the world. The evidence is that in the glitter of Dublin's shopping
tent in
the massive glass and steel International Financial Services centr in
the big
names - IBM, Intel, Dell Microsoft, Boston Scientific among others to
attain the
Information Technology-Biotech skyline and in the unprecedented
construction
boom across the country. Of the over 1,000 multinational companies in
lreland.
600 are from the U.S.
accounting for an investment-exceeding ?61 billion and employing close
to million
people. On a per capita Ireland
has twice as much as UD FDI. Stock as the Informs an economic
dossier compiled by the
Irish Government' across the country there is a strong sentiment for
globalization.
Undoubtedly because in the past decade national country is witnessing
reverse migration.

Resumos Relacionados