By the time I graduated, after three years at UCD, the World Bank had, in 1978, recognized Ireland as one of the eighteen industrial market economies in the world. This did not mean that Ireland was particularly rich. By 1980, per capita income in Ireland was still the third lowest in the European Union, ahead only of Portugal and Greece. It was $3,027, compared to $6,656 in the US, $5,516 in Germany and $4,500 in the UK. But just being in this league at all was an amazing transformation. In twenty years, Ireland had gone from being an agrarian economy where cattle was king to one that could
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