Celtic Tiger's New Racing Stripes
By Pat O'Connor, co-author Rick Steves' Ireland 2005
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| The magic of Ireland is enjoyed in the pubs where music is consumed recklessly. |
I've finished leading our 2nd rollicking Ireland tour of the year and am back in bustling Dublin, switching gears from tour guiding to guidebook researching. I scamper up the steps into the lobby of one of my favorite Dublin guesthouses, armed with research questions, and approach the blond behind the front desk. I don't recall her being here last year. After a couple basic questions, I gear down to work on my communication skills. "Katarzyna" is Polish and cares about getting me the right research answers. She's working on her English, which is far better than my non-existent grasp of Polish. She senses I'm on a tight schedule. But we share a laugh over our mutually botched pronunciations of local street names like "Braithwaite" and "Fumbally."
Eastern Europeans like Katarzyna are abundant in Ireland today. The waiter at the trendy bagel cafe last night was from Estonia. The chambermaid who brought me that extra towel last week in Galway was from Latvia. In fact, since the EU blossomed eastward by 10 nations last May, Ireland's resurgent "Celtic Tiger" economy has made it a beacon for job seekers and given the Emerald Isle the lowest unemployment rate in Europe (currently 4.5%). I walked past at least a dozen "wait staff needed" signs taped to windows in local cafes and bars during my research rounds yesterday.
It's a far cry from my first trip here in 1981 when the "Troubles" raged up in the North and the stagnant South doggedly faced 20% unemployment. With an economy in shambles, Ireland's greatest export was always her people. They had to emigrate to find any kind of decent work. The only sign of ethnic diversity I could find in those days was each town's seemingly obligatory Chinese restaurant.
But in the past generation, that outflow has reversed and Ireland's economic miracle is the envy of Europe. Irish expatriates are back home in droves, many with BMWs parked in their driveways. There seems to be one cell phone laying beside each half finished pint in the pub. Today's Irish book themselves on holidays to the Canary Islands, instead of one way tickets to work for their cousins in Boston or New York. And for the first time in history, the Irish are more affluent per capita than the British. 25 years ago, British construction firms recruited unemployed Irish lads to work on London construction sites. But today it's the Brits who are finding work on booming Dublin sites.
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| Every town has a pub packed with fun-loving locals and filled with toe-tapping music every night...one of the joys of travel in Ireland. Even if a beer costs €4, it's one of the best values in Europe for people-fun and entertainment. |
How'd Ireland do it? When they joined the EU in 1973 (then the EEC) the Irish government set a smart course offering low corporate tax rates to attract foreign firms to set up shop in Ireland. They talked their labor and management groups into creative and far sighted cooperative contract agreements. The well educated, youthful labor force (over 40% under age 25) lured major US tech and pharmaceutical firms. Ireland now ranks 2nd to the US in software production. Welcome to the "Silicon Bog." After WWII, English became the language of international business. As Europe's only English speaking country using the Euro (Britain loves its pound), Ireland is building on its unique position.
Ireland is having to learn to manage its success. Some fear the influx of foreigners might become a drain on their welfare system. Dublin's property prices have more than tripled in less than 10 years, forcing young couples to buy new homes that require longer commutes. Families that managed with one car 30 years ago might now have three. Dublin traffic is bursting and a new motorway was just approved last week to ease congestion…right past the base of the ancient Hill of Tara. It's a controversial route over sacred ground that hopefully will not signal the trampling of rural charm in the name of progress.
Is idyllic Ireland still out there? Sure, but the local characters sporting Irish brogues down at the village pub might be having their pints poured by a barman from Hungary with a Bela Lugosi accent. As borders lower, Ireland will never again be the isolated chunk of fringe Europe it once was. Multiculturalism is here to stay.
Katarzyna has finished answering my research questions and I pocket my scribbled guidebook copy. As I thank her on my way out, I catch myself wondering if she'll settle here and become, like the Vikings and Norman invaders before her, "more Irish than the Irish themselves." Or maybe she'll bring an Irish guy back with her to Krakow. Either way is fine in this mobile Europe of evaporating borders.
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