Preface to the third edition

One of the greatest upheavals in financial history was unfolding as this edition was being written. Ireland was in the spotlight, its economy devastated. Every year from 2010, the national debt was set to increase by about €3,200 for each man, woman and child. Interest payments alone on the debt amounted to about €1,000 per capita per year. Nevertheless, the strength of the Irish wealth achievement during 1988–2007 – the ‘Celtic tiger’ – was such that Ireland had a surplus balance of trade throughout the disaster. But confidence, based on real economic performance, became hubris. Ireland is now in uncharted seas, without excuses for its failures.

While this is a short history, I cover the confrontation between terrorism and constitutional government at some length. The slow wearing down of the IRA – a combination of ruthless terror, counter-terror and ever-growing exhaustion – is instructive to a wider world, not least in its combination of resolution and compromise. The process has already taken on the hue of another era.