In Ireland, you know it’s become a big story if it hits the international press. But since that clichéd-Celtic Tiger came to a screeching halt, we’ve become somewhat accustomed to seeing the likes of CNBC, the Financial Times, Bloomberg and others taking interest in the vagaries of our economic downfall.
Now, much of the chronology of what happened is laid bare in a piece by Michael Lewis in the upcoming issue (March 2011) of Vanity Fair.
“When Irish Eyes Are Crying” details how Ireland “headed for bankruptcy with its own mysterious logic” and how Irish citizens came, over time, to shoulder the massive costs associated with our failed banking system.
Lewis spoke to University College Dublin’s Morgan Kelly who has been a pivotal voice by early-on raising red flags about the banking system. He also spoke to Kelly’s UCD colleague economist Colm McCarthy.
According to the piece McCarthy believes it was an interview with the then Financial Regulator Patrick Neary, shortly after the bank guarantee, that “changed the dominant narrative inside the head of the average Irish citizen” about what was actually happening within our banking system and made people more open to the Kelly’s warnings.
"Neary, for his part, looked as if he had been dragged from a hole into which he badly wanted to return,” Lewis writes.
You can see that Prime Time interview between Mark Little and Patrick Neary here and also read the Vanity Fair piece.
