Contemporary Irish Politics & Society

(4 Credits)

Enormous changes have occurred in Ireland in the last decade, especially the social and cultural implications of the economic boom known as the "Celtic Tiger" that have transformed the country in so many ways. What happens to the social life of a nation that leapfrogs from being an agricultural economy to a technologically-advanced postindustrial one? This course will examine the changes that Ireland has undergone that extend to all areas of public and private life: the (uneven) rise in levels of personal wealth; the decline of the Catholic church, both as a means of social organization and as a mode of private, personal understanding of the world; the change from being a population defined by emigration to one now experiencing much higher levels of immigration; and the attendant challenges of our transformation into a more dramatically multicultural society.