What Makes the Irish "Tick"?

It's just over a week now before we're off for Dublin, Derry, Donegal, Sligo and Galway. In June, I co-lead an MU study abroad program in Ireland. (See here, here, here and here for previous posts). My task is to guide our students exploring what's happened to Ireland in the last ten years. We'll do this by comparing life in three very different cities, and in a couple of remote rural places.

I've found a very accessible, insightful, thought-provoking book to support our program, called Global Ireland: Same Difference by well known UCD Sociology Professor Tom Inglis. I think it's worth reading for anyone who's interested in the past, present and challenging future of the people of the Irish island.

An excerpt from the book's forward:

The central question is simple: what have been the effects for Ireland of having moved so rapidly from being a very traditional, insular, Catholic society to becoming one of the most open, globalized societies in the world?