ABSTRACT

Many people who come to Ireland take a guided tour in which they are introduced to well-known places and people. In some respects, what I have written is a kind of guidebook. It is a selected way of reading and interpreting Irish people and culture and the transformations that have taken place, particularly in the last 50 years. I suggest that to understand how Ireland has changed, it is necessary to put it into a global perspective. To develop this perspective, I will introduce some concepts and theories that I use in the rest of the book which, I think, help bring together the different pieces of evidence in a more coherent way.