The Best is Yet to Come

Ireland's miracle is far from over. As anxiety mounts about the end of Ireland's boom. The Best is Yet to Come argues that Ireland is not experiencing the beginning of the end, but rather the end of the beginning.

Ireland is undergoing a demographic recovery with decades yet to run. Currently the only country in Europe whose population has not greatly increased since the nineteenth century, the Republic's population could reach nine million by 2050. By that time, the economic reunification of North and South could see twelve million flourish in an all-island economy.

In the last century, Israel showed that a nation can quickly recover from severe population loss, strengthen its economy and at the same time revive an ancient culture. Ireland can similarly realize its economic future and at the same time recover its cultural past. To do this, Ireland must overcome a political system devoid of vision and the distractions of a transient obsession with propsperity.

Ensuring that the best is indeed yet to come will demand all the intellectual and political leadership that the new century can offer.