Transforming Ireland - DCU and UL co-authors launch new book
20 November 2009

Professor Michael Cronin and Dr Debbie Ging of DCU, and Professor Peadar Kirby, University of Limerick, launched their new book /Transforming Ireland: Challenges, Critiques, Resources/ (Manchester University Press) in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on Tuesday 17 November.

Guest speaker Michael Farrell, a human rights lawyer with the Free Legal Advice Centre, spoke of the extraordinary timeliness of this project. He said that the book coincided with a wider acknowledgement of the failure of neoliberalism and as such has tapped into a moment of real despair and profound need for change in Irish society. He pointed out that, although the book presents a disturbing and oftentimes exasperating account of the damage wrought by the ‘boom years’ on civil society, it also offers realistic strategies for moving beyond the current impasse.

Farrell suggested that it is often out of adversity that the most positive changes emerge. He cited lack of faith in the current government, manifest discontent among public servants and young people’s passion for human rights and global ecological issues as ideal conditions for the evolution of a new political movement in Ireland. This book, he concluded, was a vital contribution to debates about how such a movement might take shape.

Transforming Ireland is a broad-ranging collection, which deals with the impact of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger boom on numerous aspects of Irish life, including the media, health, education, state surveillance, immigrants, gender, the pharmaceutical industry and the welfare state. Challenging the notion that there is no alternative for Ireland but the present economic and political dispensation, experts map out an alternative politics that could create spaces for hope and renewal in contemporary Ireland.

The event was attended by academics from a wide range of institutions and disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as by representatives from community groups and various government and non-government agencies.

For details on ordering, see www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/catalogue/book.asp?id=1204375

Transforming Ireland: Challenges, critiques, resources
Edited by Debbie Ging, Michael Cronin, Peadar Kirby

Manchester University Press, 2009
ISBN: HB 9780719078927, PB 9780719078934