Ireland

Celtic tribes arrived on the island between 600-150 B.C. Invasions by Norsemen that began in the late 8th century were finally ended when King Brian BORU defeated the Danes in 1014. English invasions began in the 12th century and set off more than seven centuries of Anglo-Irish struggle marked by fierce rebellions and harsh repressions. A failed 1916 Easter Monday Rebellion touched off several years of guerrilla warfare that in 1921 resulted in independence from the United Kingdom for 26 southern counties; six northern (Ulster) counties remained part of the UK. In 1949, Ireland withdrew from the British Commonwealth; it joined the European Community in 1973. Irish governments have sought the peaceful unification of Ireland and have cooperated with Britain against terrorist groups. A peace settlement for Northern Ireland is gradually being implemented despite some difficulties. In 2006, the Irish and British governments developed and began to implement the St. Andrews Agreement, building on the Good Friday Agreement approved in 1998.

Housing bubble and financial crisis

In the Irish property bubble, around 2006 more than a fifth of the Irish workforce was employed building houses. The Irish construction industry had swollen to become nearly a quarter of the country’s G.D.P.—compared with less than 10 percent in a normal economy—and Ireland was building half as many new houses a year as the United Kingdom, which had almost 15 times as many people to house. Since 1994 the average price for a Dublin home had risen more than 500 percent. In parts of the city, rents had fallen to less than 1 percent of the purchase price—that is, you could rent a million-dollar home for less than $833 a month. The investment returns on Irish land were ridiculously low: it made no sense for capital to flow into Ireland to develop more of it. Irish home prices implied an economic growth rate that would leave Ireland, in 25 years, three times as rich as the United States. By 2007, Irish banks were lending 40 percent more to property developers than they had to the entire Irish population seven years earlier. Morgan Kelly, a professor of economics at University College Dublin, predicted the Irish real-estate prices could fell relative to income—by 40 to 50 per cent, and they did.

Many of housing developments are called "ghost estates" because they’re empty. According to the audit of Ireland’s Department of the Environment published in October, 2010, of the nearly 180,000 units that had been granted planning permission, only 78,195 were completed and occupied. Others are occupied but remain unfinished. Virtually all construction has ceased. There were never enough people in Ireland to fill the new houses.

See also: 2010 European sovereign debt crisis

Economical characteristics

• Currency: Euro (ISO code: EUR)
• Central bank discount rate: 3% (31 December 2008)
• Commercial banks lending rate: 6.76% (31 December 2008)
• is part of the Eurozone

Statistics

Statistic / Year	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
GDP (million USD)	96 421	96 596	104 688	122 520	157 384	184 970	201 676	222 414	260 871	267 576
Govt. debt (% of GDP)	49.367	40.125	36.785	34.741	33.607	32.024	31.830	27.868	27.176
Govt. revenue (% of GDP)	32.370	32.369	30.685	29.505	29.916	31.202	32.458	33.957	33.071
Govt. expenses (% of GDP)	30.558	27.789	29.337	29.608	29.750	29.985	30.538	30.657	31.989
Debt to revenue (years)	1.525	1.240	1.199	1.177	1.123	1.026	0.981	0.821	0.822

References

Note: statistical data was rounded. Different sources may use different methodologies for their estimates. Debt to revenue is calculated by dividing the two variables from their original ('unrounded') values. It represents how long it would a government take to repay its entire debt if it used its whole revenue for this purpose.

External links

• Ireland on Wikipedia
• Central bank of Ireland
• BBC country profile
• Stateless Societies: Ancient Ireland (pdf), by Joseph R. Peden, April 1971
• The Death of the Celtic Tiger by Brian Ó Caithnia, October 2009
• Reflections on Legal Polycentrism (pdf), by Gerard Casey, 2010, on polycentric law in Ireland
• If you thought the bank bailout was bad, wait until the mortgage defaults hit home by Morgan Kelly, November 2010
• The Irish problem: It isn’t spending cuts by Allister Heath, October 2010
• S&P cuts ratings on Irish banks; Anglo deemed junk by Shawn Pogatchnik, November 2010
• Irish government, seeking bailout, unveils $20 billion in spending cuts, taxes by Anthony Faiola, November 2010
• Bailout boosts Ireland banks by Shawn Pogatchnik, November 2010
• The Irish Subjugation by Philipp Bagus, November 2010
• Central Bank steps up its cash support to Irish banks financed by institution printing own money by Donal O'Donovan, January 2011
• Property Rights In Celtic Irish Law by Joseph R Peden, 1977, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 81-95.