# Explain Ireland from 1922 to about 1990 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 13, 2011, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-ireland-from-1922-to-about-1990/606005 "2011-12-13T06:23:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-ireland-from-1922-to-about-1990/606005/21 "2011-12-19T23:32:11Z")
> [@studmuffin](#): > > Can’t really blame the English for all Ireland’s post 1922 ills can we ? :eek: I never suggested that one do so. However, your post which prompted my reply specifically referred to that period of time _before_ 1922, i.e. during the time of the Plantations and the Protestant Ascendancy. Moreover, you couched your argument in terms of religious bigotry: > [@studmuffin](#): > > Even before Independance Ireland’s industrial region was concentrated in the **hard working Protestant** north. > What reason can be given for the Industrial Revolution passing Ireland by, the lack of any shipbuilding or major industrial production in a huge conurbation like Dublin… except **Catholic fecklessness, sloth and lickspittle devotion to The Church and Rome ?** Not only was your remark bigoted, but rather comical when one considers that for the three centuries from the Act of Supremacy until Waterloo, the most powerful nation in Europe was Catholic (first Spain, whose great wealth rested on their naval and shipbuilding prowess, then France, whose wealth derived from the great productivity of their vast Metropolitan holdings). ---
**Author:** ![Aeris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Aeris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeris)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-ireland-from-1922-to-about-1990/606005/22 "2011-12-20T15:14:13Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Well if thats the case, why did Northern Ireland, with its English, Hitlerite, jackboot on its innocent white swanlike neck develop industry, while the south in between having its maidens ravaged and its babies tortured and eaten by the Anglo Saxon sadists (Who cackled with pleasure while doing so I might add)…didn’t ? > > Which also raises the question why huge numbers of Irish people continuosly through history chose to permamently emigrate to the land of the anti christ, and rapists of civilisation, AND ensure that not only were their families raised there, but their descendants, and their descendants descendants did so as well? Yikes.:eek: ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-ireland-from-1922-to-about-1990/606005/23 "2011-12-20T15:37:03Z")
Harl;and and Wolf was a huge oiperation-at its peak, it employed thousands of workers. Same with the Scottish shipyards-firms like John Brown, Camel Laird dominated the business for years. Yet now, the industry is almost dead-Cunard had ist latest liner built in France. So why did these enterprises fail? Were they slow to adapt to new methods? Or did low wage Korean and Asian yards make shipbuilding impossible , in the UK? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-ireland-from-1922-to-about-1990/606005/24 "2011-12-20T15:58:53Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Ireland really seems to have missed out in the 1960’s and 1970’s, it was an educated country that spoke English, it could have benefited from low wages as more industry moved there. In fact, that might have been the fate of British Industry if all Ireland had stayed in the UK, with more and more Industry moving across the Irish sea. Yes I know N Ireland suffered from collapse in Industry in the 60’s and 70’s, but the Province was too small and too specialized. Irish GDP went up by a factor of 2 1960-1970 and a factor of four 1970-1980. The only real stagnant period 1960-1990 was the [early 80’s](http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:IRL&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+irish#ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:IRL&ifdim=country&tstart=-285015600000&tend=945666000000&hl=en&dl=en), when growth more or less stopped. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-ireland-from-1922-to-about-1990/606005/25 "2011-12-20T16:41:08Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Ireland really seems to have missed out in the 1960’s and 1970’s, it was an educated country that spoke English, it could have benefited from low wages as more industry moved there. In fact, that might have been the fate of British Industry If you use the link I posted above to view Irish industrial output as a fraction of GDP, it was pretty steady (and thus growing by a factor of fifteen since GDP grew by that amount) in the 1960-1980 period. UK industry at the same time was shrinking as a fraction of GDP. I think you need a cite for your assertion in the OP. Ireland seems to have done pretty well after 1960 or so. Industry increased, GDP and GDP per captia grew rapidly, child mortality plunged, etc. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-ireland-from-1922-to-about-1990/606005/26 "2011-12-20T16:59:06Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > If you use the link I posted above to view Irish industrial output as a fraction of GDP, it was pretty steady (and thus growing by a factor of fifteen since GDP grew by that amount) in the 1960-1980 period. UK industry at the same time was shrinking as a fraction of GDP. > > I think you need a cite for your assertion in the OP. Ireland seems to have done pretty well after 1960 or so. Industry increased, GDP and GDP per captia grew rapidly, child mortality plunged, etc. I was talking about the 40 years before that. In the 1960’s UK Industry began its decline and many moved overseas (or began too). If Ireland had followed a more industry friendly approach from the beginning, it could well have benefited from that as more Industry went to it. ---
**Author:** ![dasilva94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@dasilva94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasilva94)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2011, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-ireland-from-1922-to-about-1990/606005/27 "2011-12-27T19:27:12Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I was talking about the 40 years before that. In the 1960’s UK Industry began its decline and many moved overseas (or began too). If Ireland had followed a more industry friendly approach from the beginning, it could well have benefited from that as more Industry went to it. I think the economic report by the civil servant T K Whitaker was very influencial in the changing the government thinking from autarky to a more open thinking on ecomonic affairs. [http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.\_K.\_Whitaker](http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._K._Whitaker) > [@](#): > > In 1956 Whitaker was appointed Secretary of the Department of Finance at the exceptionally young age of thirty-nine. His surprise appointment took place at a time when Ireland’s economy was in deep depression. Economic growth was non-existent, inflation apparently insoluble, unemployment rife, living standards low and emigration at a figure not far below the birth rate. Whitaker believed that free trade, with increased competition and the end of protectionism, would become inevitable and that jobs would have to be created by a shift from agriculture to industry and services. He formed a team of officials within the department which produced a detailed study of the economy, culminating in a plan recommending policies for improvement. The plan was accepted by the government and was transformed into a White Paper which became known as the First Programme for Economic Expansion, and quite unusually this was published with his name attached in November 1958. The programme, which became known as the “Grey Book”, became a landmark in Irish economic history, primarily for its bold new ideas. This brought the stimulus of foreign investment into the Irish economy. This formed the main part of Lemass’s economic policy once he became Taoisceach (Prime Minister) after DeValera in '59. But if you want a good coverage of Ireland from 1912-1985, you could do worse than Joe Lee’s book: Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=634698](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=634698) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-ireland-from-1922-to-about-1990/606005.md?page=1)