{"id":34902,"date":"2025-08-31T16:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T16:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/34902\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T16:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T16:25:07","slug":"children-of-irelands-economic-crash-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/34902\/","title":{"rendered":"Children of Ireland\u2019s economic crash \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many, the photograph of Troika officials walking past a beggar in Dublin city centre in November 2010 is among the images most closely associated with Ireland\u2019s spectacular economic crash<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A wave of reckless lending by Irish banks was one of the main contributors to the crisis. <\/p>\n

The years that followed were marked by emigration, rising unemployment, business closures and recession. <\/p>\n

Ireland effectively lost its economic sovereignty and was forced to accept an EU\/IMF bailout followed by painful austerity measures. The years that followed were marked by caution. <\/p>\n

With the benefit of hindsight it is possible to see that this crisis, and the extraordinary measures taken in response, offered a chance to reimagine Ireland\u2019s economy, and in particular policy around land use and affordable housing. <\/p>\n

A failure to do so in any meaningful way is one of the contributory factors for Ireland\u2019s current housing crisis which is responsible for making home ownership unattainable for many in their 20s and 30s. <\/p>\n

Behind big picture headlines from the crash, including the \u20ac64 billion loaned to Irish banks to cover large their property losses, there are personal stories within families across the country who saw the trajectory of their lives sharply and in some cases irrevocable altered due to the crash. <\/p>\n

This weekend Jessica Doyle shares some of those stories of people in their 20s and 30s who experienced the crash <\/a>as children and witnessed the impact it had on their family including unemployment, housing insecurity, and the fracturing of relationships. <\/p>\n

One of those people was Daragh Fleming (30), is a writer, poet and mental-health advocate from Glounthaune, Co Cork.<\/p>\n

Fleming remembers that times were good for his family before the 2008 crash, with his parents adding an extension to their house and the family going on holidays to stay with friends in the US. Such trips becoming unthinkable after the crash.<\/p>\n

He feels people are still recovering from the impact of the crash and many younger people are struggling. \u201cIt\u2019s just strange because we\u2019re a wealthy country. But that\u2019s only because of all the corporations coming in. The actual people on the ground, your day-to-day people, are struggling a lot in this wealthy country. It\u2019s bizarre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another person who shared their experience about their childhood during the crash is photography student Caireann Flynn (34) from Lisnaskea in Co Fermanagh. She is currently living in Glasgow. <\/p>\n

Her memory of that time is conversations between the adults almost exclusively on money and jobs. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt just nosedived, and in 2008, 2009. All the conversations about money in the house were: \u2018don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to pay this bill, don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to keep the lights on\u2019. We got our electricity changed over to one of those meters so it could be tracked more and it just wouldn\u2019t be topped up half the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really confusing, because we lived in this large house, so outwardly it looked like we were loaded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flynn said 2008 was a really hard year as her mum died and she went from feeling she could \u201cdo anything\u201d to feeling pressured to pursue a stable career. <\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously had a very extreme year in 2008, but I don\u2019t think that my circumstances are uncommon. I think a lot of people lost parents, whether they took their own lives or families fell apart, or people split up or became depressed,\u201d says Flynn.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think, for a lot of people my age, it stripped away an innocence that people had as teenagers, where actually your life isn\u2019t just this little bubble with you and your friends and your family. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this thing called the economy that affects everything that goes on around you, and it can actually just turn on its head and make everything very hard for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flynn also believes the legacy of the crash has imbued her generation with \u201creally cautious with making big decisions.\u201d <\/p>\n

Five Key Reads<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s Greenest Places shortlist:<\/a> These 14 nominees show concrete evidence of widespread action on climate and sustainability goals.<\/p>\n

Jim Gavin: Is the former Dublin GAA manager a good fit for president?<\/a> Harry McGee profiles the former Defence Forces member the Taoiseach is backing to run as a Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> candidate.<\/p>\n

Kneecap at Electric Picnic:<\/a> Against stiff competition and in a difficult time slot, Kneecap have taken the Electric Picnic crowd and delivered a performance for the ages, writes Nadine O\u2019Regan.<\/p>\n

CAO help desk: The key questions<\/a> students had after this week\u2019s college offers<\/p>\n

An investigation<\/a> into European Union<\/a> funding programmes reveals that millions of euro have gone to Israeli<\/a> companies that develop technology that can be used for military purposes such as the development of drones by Israeli entities.<\/p>\n

As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com<\/a>, including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews<\/a>, tips for the best restaurants in our food section<\/a> and all the latest in sport<\/a>. There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We value your views. Please feel free to send comments, feedback or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered to feedback@irishtimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For many, the photograph of Troika officials walking past a beggar in Dublin city centre in November 2010…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,179,18,19,17,27110],"class_list":{"0":"post-34902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-it-sunday"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}