It’s the luck of the Irish. Two days before St Patrick’s Day, with the Emerald Isle’s economy stuck in the doldrums, they strike oil.
The Irish economy is no stranger to extremes. In the Famine of the mid-19th century, a million people died and 1.5 million emigrated. For more than a century it was one of the poorest countries in the West. As recently as the 1980s a million people lived below the poverty line.
Then, within a decade, Ireland became one of the world’s richest countries, transformed by improved education, EU largesse and a low corporate tax rate luring foreign companies.
Property prices soared. Irish banks lent crazy amounts to Irish developers but when the bubble burst unemployment shot up and austerity budgets cut government spending to the bone.
Will oil restore the country’s fortunes, or merely overheat the economy once more? If the Irish have sense as well as luck they will follow Norway’s example by stashing some of the proceeds and seeking long-term equilibrium rather than short-term boom.
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Something short of triumph or disaster.