My Irish adventure, part 1

I found it an outstanding idea to put focus on Ireland in this semester as I spent the whole last summer there. In a few entries I’ll try to write a bit about my cultural observations I made while my stay in Galway, at the west coast.

David Monagan often mentions how much Ireland has changed since he first got there in the 1970s. The reason is the Celtic Tiger – the economic boom that suddenly caused a rapid growth. The Irish people unexpectedly found themselves having money after decades of living in poverty. The picture of the house above is actually one of the symbols of the new wealthy Irish society. That’s one of those new mansions (it’s a mansion at least in my eyes considering the size and shape) purchased on credit with high interest rates, the owners of whose will have to pay back the loan the next 30 years or more keeping working hard for every monthly instalment. The truth is, as Lisa Joyce mentioned herself when she had a class with us, that the Irish can’t deal with their sudden wealth and therefore make investments they can’t really afford in the long run. In the suburb where I lived there were only houses like that and among the owners there weren’t only executives, but also simple people from the lower middle class I’d say. The point is that they all wanted a new house, because everybody was getting one. And the price of land was getting unaffordable, so you had to make a quick decision. All in all Ireland of today is no more old-fashioned colourful postcard-like houses, but rather the kind of houses from my picture that people want to have.