We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland

by Fintan O'Toole

Ireland was tiny – its population in 1971 was still a shade under three million, not much more than that of Paris. Even after a decade of modernization, it was still both relatively poor and highly dependent on the British economy. In 1973, Ireland’s GDP per capita was still less than two-thirds (64.2 per cent) of the EEC average.18 Ireland’s total exports were worth little more than €1 billion, and the economy had a balance of trade of minus €340 million. Moreover, 55 per cent of the total value of exports went to Great Britain or Northern Ireland. Food, drink and tobacco products accounted for over 43 per cent of total exports. Women made up just 27 per cent of the total employed workforce. The amount of new foreign direct investment in Ireland in 1972, the year before the country went into Europe, was the equivalent of €16 million euro. (Thirty-five years later, it was €30 billion.)