The Young Europeans ad suggested to American corporations that they ought to set up in Ireland, that their capital should flow to where the labour was, and employ the new, enthusiastic highly educated workforce that was emerging from the late Irish baby boom of the 1960s and from the rapid expansion of secondary and university education. This had been the success story of Irish modernization. By 1984, 850 foreign companies were operating manufacturing facilities in Ireland. American investment alone over the previous twenty-five years had totalled $4.6 billion, and American companies now
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