The Irish Economy half a Century ago

Teagasc’s forerunner, An Foras Talúntais, was born at a time of economic gloom and crisis. Towards the end of the same year when ‘an institute for agricultural research to be known as An Foras Talúntais ’ was established, a key public policy document noted that ‘a sense of anxiety ’ about Ireland’s economic prospects was indeed justified; ‘after 35 years of native government people are asking whether we can achieve an acceptable degree of economic progress’.2 Almost simultaneously, in late 1958 the Irish Banking Review lamented that ‘Ireland [had] been suffering from a mood of pessimism in recent years. Expressions of despair about the future…are heard on all sides’. Two years earlier, the cover of the July 1956 issue of Dublin Opinion, capturing the despondency that ruled the Irish Republic in the mid-1950s, had borne a cartoon showing a map of Ireland with the caption, ‘Shortly Available: Underdevelope