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Ireland was "11th richest country in the world"

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    #32
    Denerick
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    We were actually quite wealthy in the post civil war period, with a large class of farmers who actually owned their own land... People overlook this when they contrast it with the general European situation. Our infrastructure and public finances were messy, as always, but by and large we were not third world. Tom Garvin writes a lot about this particular situation ('Why was Ireland so poor for so long', look it up, a great wee book)


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    #33
    ckristo2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 101 ✭✭ckristo2


    Hi Denerick,
    I have heard of the Tom Garvin book and it does sound interesting.
    I suppose when you think of Ireland up till the 1990's you have to kind of think of say Albania in association with the rest of the Balkans or say italy or Greece. We had a tiny economy depended to a pitifull degree on the U.K. (As we do now on the U.S.) but while our living standards were certainly lower than our neighbours (Britain, Netherlands, Belgium etc.) They were what you would expect of a county with a small population, no natural resources and poor economic management. Sure there were slumps, we did suffer in the depression of the 1930's (But not as much as the North of England or Germany) But we came from such a low ebb that when our Governments decided to provide a kind of dolled up tax haven for big corporations in the 1990's and our growth rates boomed, it looked like we were really hitting the stratosphere...In reality we were only getting up off our knees.


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    #34
    Denerick
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    Hi,

    I'm not sure we were the 11th richest in the world, but as I've mentioned, we were actually comfertable, if not wealthy. People overlook the fact that no-one was ever in any real poverty by 1930s standards, and by comparisons with the rest of the world we had a pretty good standard of life. Emigration probably helped the country maintain a peaceful status quo. Its more a fact that we were stagnant than we actually fell into a depression.


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