Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
During the “Celtic Tiger” boom years (1995-2007), American corporations saw big ad-
vantages in locating here, making Ireland an economic beachhead on European turf. Ire-
land's “Silicon Bog” is the European home to such big names as IBM, Intel, Microsoft,
Apple,Facebook,andGoogle.Ireland'seconomicsuccess(tarnishednowduetotheglobal
recession and bank bailouts) was the model that Eastern European nations hoped to emu-
late when a number of them joined the European Union in 2004. The Irish are also
big pharmaceutical producers: More Viagra is made in Ireland than in any other coun-
try...though the proudly virile Irish males claim it's all for export.
Other famous exports from the Republic of Ireland include rock and contemporary mu-
sic (U2, Thin Lizzy, the Corrs, Sinéad O'Connor, Enya), traditional Irish music (the Chief-
tains, Dubliners, the Clancy Brothers), opera (The Irish Tenors and John McCormack),
ford), beer (Guinness), festivals (Halloween has Celtic roots), British military heroes (the
Duke of Wellington), authors (Jonathan Swift, W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, George Bern-
ard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, and Frank McCourt), and actors (Colin Farrell,
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Gabriel Byrne, Richard Harris, Barry Fitzgerald, and Maureen
O'Hara).
Until recently Ireland was one of the most ethnically homogenous nations on earth,
but the Celtic Tiger economy changed all that, attracting thousands of Eastern Europeans
