Economic Development and Social Values in Ireland: A First Assessment. ESRI Memorandum Series No. 53 1968

Hutchinson, Bertram (1966) Economic Development and Social Values in Ireland: A First Assessment. ESRI Memorandum Series No. 53 1968. [Policy Paper]

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Abstract

Doubtless a number of "purely" economic, political and geographical factors have handicapped until comparatively recently the progress of economic development in Ireland: We scarcely need to give examples. Yet not all communities that have suffered from the same, or similar handicaps in one historical period or another were defeated by them, economically speaking; in just the same way as the Irish people. Clearly such differences as there were must have arisen in part from the lack of exact identity in the several sets of historical circumstances in which these communities have found themselves situated. But we may also suppose that some responsibility for differences in rates of economic development should be laid at the door of diversity of social values. That is, there may have been, features of life in Ireland (of which certain vestiges remain today) that were out of harmony with the spirit of industrial society. Irrespective possibly of oppressive historical circumstances, these may have created by themselves an obstacle to the transformation of traditional Irish life in the direction that industrial, or even agrarian, revolution demanded. The obstacles we have in mind are those that, in contrast to those imposed from without by a parsimonious Providence, for example, or an exploiting colonial power, sprang as it were from among the people themselves.

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