Product Description

Between the years of the mid thirties through to 1960, independent Ireland suffered from economic stagnation, and also went through a period of intense cultural and psychological repression. While external circumstances account for much of the stagnation - especially the depression of the thirties and the Second World War - Preventing the Future argues that the situation was aggravated by internal circumstances. The key domestic factor was the failure to extend higher and technical education and training to larger sections of the population. This derived from political stalemates in a small country which derived in turn from the power of the Catholic Church, the strength of the small-farm community, the ideological wish to preserve an older society and, later, gerontocratic tendencies in the political elites and in society as a whole. While economic growth did accelerate after 1960, the political stand-off over mass education resulted in large numbers of young people being denied preparation for life in the modern world and, arguably, denied Ireland a sufficient supply of trained labour and educated citizens. Ireland's Celtic Tiger of the nineties was in great part driven by a new and highly educated and technically trained workforce. The political stalemates of the forties and fifties delayed the initial, incomplete take-off until the sixties and resulted in the Tiger arriving nearly a generation later than it might have.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1014257 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 278 pages

About the Author
Tom Garvin is professor of Politics at University College Dublin. His books include The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics (1981), Nationalist Revolutionaries in Ireland (1987) and 1922: the Birth of Irish Democracy (1996). He is also the author of many articles and chapters on Irish and comparative politics. He is an alumnus of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C., and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has taught at the University of Georgia, Colgate University and Mount Holyoke College.

Customer Reviews

Timely
Far from being part of the rebuilding and wealth generating part of the European economy Ireland at this time turned inwards and turned into a quasi-dictatorship modeled on North Korea.

Home rule WAS Rome rule.

The Catholic church needs to be closed down and its special relationship outlawed. The people of this island suffered enough pain and misery as a direct result of their wannabe fascist and joyless policies.



This is an excellent book. For anyone interested in how Ireland made itself poor at the behest of vested interests this is a must read.

This must never ever happen again. We deserved better than what we got.