When I returned last year at the age of 19, I could barely recognize the environs as the village of my youth. The river still rolled lazily under arched stone bridges and the brooding bard still looked down from his perch on the pub, but his view has changed drastically.

New stores and pubs have mushroomed in just a few short years, along with cheaply built vacation homes and even a hotel along the riverbank. The small video arcade in which I squandered my allowance in the days of yore has expanded into a nightclub for the influx of "jackeens" (New Jersey shore dwellers, read "bennies") and Europeans during the summer months. Of course, the local economy is booming with this increase in summer population, with seasonal inhabitants pouring money into new housing developments and campsites all around the area.

All this in just a few short years--what could be so drastic as to transform this quiet agricultural village into a hub of summer spending?

In less than a decade, the country has skyrocketed to eleventh place among the world's most competitive industrialized economies.

Well, the fact that blockbuster movie "Saving Private Ryan" was filmed just five miles away at Curracloe Beach a few years ago can not have hurt. However, the majority of the economic boom is thanks to a phenomenon that has taken hold throughout Ireland in the past several years and has come to be known as "The Celtic Tiger."

A pun on the wider term tiger economy, used to describe the rapid development of small Asian nations in the past fifteen years, the Celtic Tiger is due in large part to financial assistance stemming from Ireland's European Union (EU) membership and hefty foreign corporate investments, primarily from the United States.

What has resulted is that Ireland, once a paltry agrarian nation on the periphery of Europe, has become a destination of technology commerce between multinational corporations and the rest of Europe. In less than a decade, the country has skyrocketed to eleventh place among the world's most competitive industrialized economies. With a population of only five million, Ireland is currently second to the United States in software exportation.

For any visitor to the country twenty years ago, no trace of this technological revolution would have been evident. In fact, to many it seemed the industrial revolution had yet to hit the poorer, more isolated of the British Isles. The economy was dominated by agriculture and brewing for years. Rampant unemployment led to extremely high emigration levels. Now food and drink account for a meager 12 percent of exports and emigres are returning en masse to the Emerald Isle to snap up competitive corporate employment opportunities that rival those anywhere in the world.

Why this incredible turnaround? It seems that Ireland is a shining example of economic planning the European Union (then European Economic Community) instituted in 1975. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the largest of four economic schemas adopted at that time, has played a huge role in Ireland's industrial and economic development over the past two decades.

The rationale behind the funding was not to offer hand-outs to weaker industrial nations in the EU, but rather to increase the industrial prowess of the union as a whole.

All of this industrial competition and growth has led to high levels of immigration for the first time in decades. According to Irish government, 53 percent of these are returning natives who were once forced to emigrate due to high unemployment.

"Under-performance in weaker regions leads to a fall in consumer demand for European products, hinders economic development, distorts competition in the Single Market and ultimately reduces the EU's competitiveness on the global market," according to the European Commission's Structural Funds mission statement.

Nations lagging behind the European industrial standard, such as Ireland, entered the top priority bracket of the ERDF. This grouping, known as Objective One status, applied in 1975 to thirteen of twenty-six counties in Ireland, all regions in which it was deemed that the per capita Gross Domestic Product was less than 75 percent of the EU average.

Since that time, most of Ireland's disadvantaged regions have seen a restructuring of development. There has been an influx of funds into areas ranging from mass transportation to tourism, industrial research and development, education and health.

The single largest area of expenditure has been transportation, which was allotted over $975 billion from 1994-99.

Over the same time period, Ireland's economy grew by 40 percent, making it the most rapidly developing industrial nation in Europe.

In addition to massive structural development due to the ERDF, an attractive business recruitment policy has bolstered Ireland's economic boom. Efforts by the government to sustain a low rate of corporate tax have lured some 470 American corporations to invest credit in Ireland over the past decade.

One of the technology pioneers to venture into this area was computer manufacturer Gateway, which in 1993 opened its European headquarters and distribution plant in north Dublin. Apple, IBM, Dell and Intel soon copied this model for instant success.

Competition between these tech moguls is fierce in Ireland. The country boasts the highest per-capita computer ownership in Europe.

Computer-related products now account for 23 percent of Ireland's total exports, while pharmaceuticals weigh in at 25 percent. This is largely driven by an international demand for the sexual performance-enhancing drug Viagra, which popped up recently at a Pfizer Corp. production plant in Cork.

All this industrial competition and growth has led to high levels of immigration for the first time in decades. According to Irish government statistics, 53 percent of these arrivals are returning natives who were once forced to emigrate due to high unemployment. This is not surprising, since Ireland has one of the younger and more highly skilled European workforces that is supplemented by a world class educational system. The return of skilled natives and investment of large sums of foreign capital has bolstered the already growing economy, spreading the wealth to all areas of Irish business.

As President Clinton remarked on a 1998 visit to Gateway's European headquarters just outside Dublin, "It's a wonderful story, and it shows there's no monopoly on brainpower anywhere. The Celtic Tiger is roaring, and you should be very proud of it."

© 2000 Conor Fortune

© 2000 unbound

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