Chapter 1 ‘The Myth of the Celtic Tiger’: The Political Economy of Irish Development Since the 1990s

Abstract

The word ‘myth’ is usually misused by social scientists who think of it as being equivalent to an untruth. However, more accurately, a myth is a basic organising story, often recounting the origins and development of a people; as such it offers meaning, a way of understanding the path their development took. In this sense, the Celtic Tiger is a myth, as it was a story told about the final arrival of the Irish people at their long elusive goal of development and plenty. All that went before was the pre-history of many failures until the conditions became right for the final breakthrough. One of the functions of myth is that it legitimises a particular hierarchical ordering of social, political and economic power; to the extent that it does this through investing the order of society with a sacred significance, it reinforces a power hierarchy and makes it much more difficult to critique and undermine. In these ways, the account of Ireland's success that we call the Celtic Tiger was a myth, and it proved a very successful one since it won general acquiescence throughout society, including from academics and opinion formers.

Citation

Kirby, P. (2011), "Chapter 1 ‘The Myth of the Celtic Tiger’: The Political Economy of Irish Development Since the 1990s", Leonard, L. and Botetzagias, I. (Ed.) Sustainable Politics and the Crisis of the Peripheries: Ireland and Greece (Advances in Ecopolitics, Vol. 8), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-23. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2041-806X(2011)0000008004