ABSTRACT
Ireland seems so familiar to those who have never visited. A high-functioning tourist machine generates powerful and alluring images of castles, rocky shorelines, rolling green hills, and remarkably good-looking people. A never-flagging set of factories feeds a neverending desire on the part of foreigners for Irish-themed clothing, tea towels, shot glasses, leprechauns, shamrock pins, and other signifiers of Irish heritage. In a cultural climate where red hair is enough to (erroneously) proclaim one as “Irish,” and where being descended from one Irish grandparent (along with Muhammad Ali, Che Guevara, and Tony Blair) allows one to gain Irish citizenship, it should not be surprising that Ireland’s economic upswing of the late 1990s and early twenty-first century should have brought a corresponding upswing in the international popularity of all things Irish.
