According to a BBC News Magazine article, the "Celtic Tiger" is in intensive care and young people are rushing for the exits. BBC News tells us there are three million internet users in Ireland, comprising about 66% of the population. As in other countries, they are predominately young people and, regrettably, young persons are the ones now leaving the country. With a third of the under 25s out of work, it is the young who are most likely to leave, with Australia, New Zealand and Canada ahead of the UK as destinations, according to Jamie Smyth, social affairs correspondent at the Irish Times. She further stated that we’ve always had a culture of immigration, referring to the potato famine of the 1840s when the population shrank by 20% after a million people died and another million emigrated. Eventualy, Ireland lost half its population to the famine. Ireland is often called the Irish Republic to distinguish it from British Northern Ireland. Finally, after World War I, and centuries of British rule, independence from the United Kingdom was achieved but only at the price of civil war and partition.
After the country joined the European Community in 1973, it was transformed from a largely agricultural society into a modern, high-technology economy
Ireland’s economy began to grow rapidly in the 1990s, fueled by foreign investment. In January, 2002, euro banknotes and coins replaced the Irish currency. European elite regarded Ireland as a case study in the benefits of EU integration since the more tightly the Irish bound themselves to Continental institutions, the faster their gross domestic product rose.
In 1990, Ireland ranked near the bottom of the European Union nations in GDP per capita. In 2005, it ranked second. The boom that earned Ireland the nickname of"Celtic Tiger" faltered when the country fell into recession in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008.
Two weeks ago the Irish Times pubished the headline asking if time was running out for Irish newspapers. This is a market not between boom, bust and boom again but between a newsprint and a post newsprint age.
Never has the need for an educated youth been greater. The Irish population is far better educated today with the number of 25-34 year olds who have gone on to higher education, the second highest in the European Union. Ireland, again, is losing its most valuable asset, its youth.
Nowhere did the imaginations of utopians run so rampant and nowhere did they receive a more stinging rebuke.The Irish economy underwent one of the deepest recessions in the eurozone, with its economy shrinking by 10% in 2009. In November 2010, Ireland and the EU agreed on a financial package for the republic, ending weeks of ation about a bail-out.