Against the grain: counter-hegemonic representations of pre and post 'Celtic-Tiger' Ireland in the 'Protest' songs of Damien Dempsey

A renowned Irish journalist said that the heady rise and abrupt fall of Ireland’s ‘Celtic Tiger’1 economy, , made “Icarus look surprisingly boring” (O’Toole 2010, 10). In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, the Irish State effectively socialised the astronomical debts of private banks (McDonough and Loughrey 2009), which required a ‘bail out’ programme from the so-called Troika – consisting of the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Commission – to be put in place.2 Since then, the Irish public has been exposed to extensive, austeritydriven policies and a repetitive mantra from politicians and mainstream media that the protracted austerity programme pursued was vital if Ireland was to satisfy ‘the markets’, ‘reduce the deficit’ and ‘regain economic competitiveness’. Moreover, vulnerable groups have been scapegoated as parasitic on a system that, they argue, can no longer afford them or support their requirements in terms of housing, healthcare, education, pension provision and social security. Yet as Allen (2009) points out, it was dominant class interests that turned Ireland’s ‘economic miracle’ into a catastrophe for a substantial portion of the Irish population.