Weekend Review

12th June 2022

Old engraved illustration of a nettle plant. Antique Illustration, Popular Encyclopedia Published 1894

BBC In Our Time episode on Comenius

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Czech man who tried to use education to build a better understanding between the peoples of Europe who were otherwise divided by religious wars.

When the Fire Burns: The Life and Music of Manuel de Falla

A nice documentary about this life of the Spanish composer

The rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger

Peter Ryan continues his important research here, tracing the causes of the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger - planned industrialization in the right activities.

Then that changed in the late 1990s. The industrialization plan was tossed aside for a deindustrialization one. Manufacturing activities were drastically decreased. The new solution was to move Ireland to high tech services but it proved illusory. Those knowledge service activities in the tech economy were low to medium skill administration, sales, marketing, and customer support activities. Very minimal critical R&D, engineering, and building of high tech software went on in Ireland. On top of that, of what jobs there were in this so called tech economy, 50-70% of them went towards non-Irish labour. A minority of elite accountants and lawyers in Ireland benefited from mutating the original intention of the foreign multinational aspect of the Celtic Tiger into one that only enriched their pockets at the expense of broader Irish society. The Irish economy was one in which there was the potential for Irish firms to rival the global tech giants. Where is the Irish equivalent of Apple, Amazon, or Uber? Furthermore, as the Celtic Tiger’s manufacturing base was eroded, labour supply shocks from the increased female participation and immigration rates distorted the employment structure of the Irish economy. Activities that created high levels of domestic value were traded for those that did not.