“Sometimes the imagination is a safer place”

In a New York Times op-ed piece from 2005, globalization guru Thomas Friedman presented a rather ironic choice when exhorting Europe, specifically France and Germany, to “face reality” in their selection of an economic model. Situating the Franco-German model in contrast to what he misleadingly called the Anglo-Saxon model, Friedman contended: “it's either the leprechaun way or the Louvre.” More than forty years prior, and in the wake of Taoiseach Sean Lemass's adoption of an economic program designed to bring about Ireland's modernization, a Time magazine cover story similarly announced the dawning of a “New Spirit in the Ould Sod,” complete with a grinning leprechaun literally pushing back the curtains on Irish modern industry. While both pieces share an adulatory tone, and while Lemass's policies regarding foreign trade and investment paved the way for the contemporary global connections at the heart of Friedman's ardor, what is most striking is their shared employment of the Irish supernatural as a means of rendering such changes. Although decades apart, both accounts urge in their own ways that we “Follow the Leapin' Leprechaun” when exploring Ireland's path to modernization and globalization.