Why is ireland collapsing

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Northern Irish unionists have been infuriated by the region's post-Brexit status, which was the most contentious issue during London's negotiations to leave the EU. To avoid border checks between the British-ruled region and the rest of Ireland, Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to let some EU rules remain in force in Northern Ireland, with checks on some goods arriving from the rest of the United Kingdom. London now says the arrangement known as the Northern Irish protocol isn't working and must be changed; the EU has ruled out any renegotiation, though it says it will look at ways of easing implementation.

Johnson's spokesperson said: "We believe that the challenges the DUP and others have set out illustrates that the protocol in its current form is simply not sustainable".

The power-sharing government formed from the main parties supporting and opposing British rule of Northern Ireland is one of the central stipulations of the peace agreement that ended three decades of conflict in the region.

Irish critics fear this economic death-spiral could lead to a decade of grinding austerity, a generation lost to unemployment and, worse, the return of a spectre that has haunted Ireland for two centuries: mass emigration. At first glance, the Irish appear to be tackling their plight with a wit that is self-deprecating and ever so slightly proud.

During the Celtic tiger period we were like, jeez, look at us, this will never last," says Lorcan, a father-of-two from Limerick, where Dell closed its Irish operations last year with the loss of more than 5, related jobs.

In England, there is a cultural memory of things working. There is no cultural memory in Ireland of things working. The self-flagellation gene in Ireland is very strong — 'cut us to fuck because we're used to being the downtrodden victim. Pat Ingoldsby, a Dublin street poet, says he can cope without what is now a decimated welfare system.

My most treasured possession is that I've got nothing to lose. While ghost estates of new, unsaleable flats stand empty across the land, , people are struggling with negative equity. Ireland has the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the EU And unemployment would be even worse were it not for the return of emigration. Ireland is scarred by memories of the , people who fled in the s, and the hundreds of thousands — many highly educated — who left in the s.

The loss of dynamic young people helped ensure Ireland's economy stagnated for decades. But critics say it has also been a useful tool for governments, keeping unemployment down and exporting opposition to the Irish establishment. Nearly 20, Irish nationals emigrated in the year between April and April , and research suggests a further , will leave this year and next.

With its tourist bikes for hire under newly planted lime trees and its glass-and-steel docklands, Dublin still glossily echoes recent prosperity. In the s, a stagnant agricultural economy was transformed into a highly skilled post-industrial playground. Computing and pharmaceutical jobs were garnished by a turbo-charged property sector.

Emigration became immigration, as Poles and others rushed to share the Irish dream of a self-confident Euro-Atlantic nation, emancipated from the shackles of Catholicism and colonialism.

While the boom-time billionaires enjoyed an unfettered freedom to build and borrow, O'Toole argues that Ireland's prosperity in the 90s was not simply the triumph of the free market.

For most of the 20th century, no other European nation recorded such sluggish national growth; a spurt in the s was Ireland finally catching up. And the global boom of that time saw an unprecedented growth in US investment abroad: much came to Ireland, given the shared language and Irish roots of many American investors as well as alluringly low tax rates.

What went wrong? Almost everyone in Ireland points their fingers at an unholy trinity of politicians, bankers and developers for turning this boom to bust. The government blew up a demented property bubble by offering huge tax breaks on new buildings. Construction swelled to account for a fifth of Ireland's economy. Prices, mortgages, wages and costs soared. Unregulated banks went on a lending spree. People "are pinning blame on one or two bankers but they didn't do it alone," says McWilliams.

They didn't hear the warning signs because their ears were stuffed with cash. According to O'Toole, nothing and no one in Ireland said "enough". Voters did not tell politicians to stop, and politicians did not set limits for developers or the banks. Now, he writes, the question is whether the Irish "have enough constructive anger to kick away a system that has failed them and make a new one for themselves".

But as Ireland's ruling classes remark with complacent pride, the Irish are not like the Greeks and the French, nor even the people of Iceland, where popular protests encouraged its government to resign. There has been no rioting on the streets of Dublin. Last week, in heavy rain, 1, people gathered there again for the rather politely titled "right to work" march.

The Greeks, says organiser James O'Toole, are much more rebellious. They take the rod, they don't complain and they will all get sweets at the end.