Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
Until a couple of decades ago if you'd asked your average Dubliner the key to the
city's complex and conflicted history, they'd most likely give you a version of the past
punctuated with '800 years'. This refers to the duration of the English (or British) oc-
cupation, the
sine qua non
of everything that has ever happened to this city. If the past
has a strong bearing on modern life, then the last two decades have seen a dramatic
re-examination of the old narrative. As Dublin prospered and then crashed, Dubliners
have dismissed '800 years' as old-fashioned and irrelevant: these days, the villains of
the piece are the bankers, the IMF and the greed of their own.
