Preventing the Future: Why was Ireland so poor for so long? - Softcover

Garvin, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0717139700 ISBN 13: 9780717139705

Publisher: Gill Books, 2005

Synopsis

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 labor 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.

About this title

About the Author:

Tom Garvin is professor of Politics at University College Dublin. His books include Nationalist Revolutionaries in Ireland (1987), 1922: the Birth of Irish Democracy (1996), and Preventing the Future: Why was Ireland so poor for so long? (2004). 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Gill Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0717139700
• ISBN 13: 9780717139705
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352