ABSTRACT
It has become commonplace to assert that we are living in a time of unprecedented change both in terms of extent and pace. Several Irish titles attest to this reality (Peillon and Slater, 1998; Corcoran and Peillon, 2002; Peillon and Corcoran, 2004; Keohane and Kuhling, 2004). Perhaps the one that captures this most dramatically, Changed Utterly, a title borrowed from W. B. Yeats’ poem (Easter 1916), asserts:
Two social processes have partly overlapped in Ireland in the last two decades: one is a general modernisation, with its greater individualism and secularism; and the other is a tremendous surge in economic growth, with its spiralling materialism, consumerism and increased choice.
