The Celtic Tiger has now died, leaving the Republic of Ireland in dire financial straits. Arguing for a period of real change, Fintan O'Toole demonstrates how the country now needs to become a fully modern republic in fact as well as name.

Between 1995 and 2007, the Republic of Ireland was a worldwide model of successful adaptation to economic globalization - then the bubble burst. Fintan O'Toole presents a passionate account of how things went wrong, focusing on corrupt planning and poorly regulated banks.

This collection of essays is drawn from Fintan O'Toole's writings over two decades. Its portraits of people - talk-show hosts, priests, children, pop stars - and its reports of social and political upheaval, reveal a country still in search of itself, but more at ease with the complexities of its own make-up; a country whose buried memories, tourist myths and current congtradictions might now be reworked to forge a truly modern Irish identity. Moving statues in a rural church, millionaires with global dreams, country-and-western fans slaughtering sheep at the Halal in Ballyhaunis: images of...

'A wildly entertaining but uncomfortable read ... Pitilessly brilliant' JONATHAN COE. 'There will not be much political writing in this or any other year that is carried off with such style' The Times. A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR. 'A quite brilliant dissection of the cultural roots of the Brexit narrative' David Miliband. 'Hugely entertaining and engrossing' Roddy Doyle. 'Best book about the English that I've read for ages' Billy Bragg. A fierce, mordantly funny and perceptive book about the act of national self-harm known as Brexit. A great democratic country tears itself apart,...