Reappraising Irish developmentalism: Editorial

Abstract

On 12 March 2009 the Institute for British-Irish Studies in the School of Politics and International Relations hosted a conference to mark the contribution of Professor Tom Garvin to Social Science, University College Dublin Professor of Politics and former editor of The Economic and Social Review. The conference explored some of the themes of Professor Garvin?s research by examining the development of Ireland in the latter half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century. A number of contributions to the conference were subsequently published as working papers by the Institute for British-Irish Studies (IBIS) at University College Dublin, edited by Professor Jennifer Todd. This special issue draws upon some of these papers. The editors would like to thank Professor Maurice Manning, Professor Jennifer Todd, Professor John Coakley, Professor Louden Ryan and Dr William Kissane for their support in bringing together this special issue of The Economic and Social Review. All the papers benefited from the presentations and comments of participants at the 2009 conference. This issue of The Economic and Social Review addresses the nature and extent of social, political, economic and cultural change since the formal beginning of Ireland?s developmental trajectory since 1958. Garvin?s own critique of Irish developmental modernity, Preventing the Future: why was Ireland so poor for so long? (2004) has done much to stimulate a new generation of social science scholarship since the publication in 1958 of the seminal Economic Development.