ABSTRACT
This chapter defines that the aims of the study, explores the Irish sociological context in which this study is placed. It provides an overview of the broad phases of economic development since independence and discusses the nature of Irish Catholicism and Nationalism. The Irish Republic remained a society along with Portugal, the least susceptible to secularisation in Western Europe with a Catholic affiliation rate of ninety one per cent on the eve of the birth of the Celtic Tiger. A three hundred year old tradition of nationalism in Ireland has continued very strong and durable. Nationalism, however, remains an ill-defined concept and does not easily lend itself to definition since it is a vision that mobilises an attachment of the majority to a particular imagined community, a feeling of a common heritage, an ethnic identification with a nation state. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
