Used
Hardcover
1994
$4.97
Irish society has changed more in the two decades leading up to the 1990s than in the whole of the previous 100 years. A rural, deeply conservative and impoverished country, its population almost entirely Roman Catholic, has become urbanized, industrialized and Europeanized. Yet the forces that propel the new Ireland towards the 21st century bring with them problems and uncertainties yet to be resolved. A basically healthy economy still has unemployment of 20%; the Catholic Church, so long the dominant force in Irish life, has found its power weakening in the face of a younger, more sceptical population and a number of moral scandals; big business and politics have had to withstand major investigations into corruption and mismanagement; and the problems of the North still loom large. Touching on almost every facet of Irish life, this book looks at where the country is now, how it got there and what it might achieve.