With clarity and depth, Gerard McCann explores the complex developments that have shaped Ireland’s economic development, north and south, and led to recurring crises and instability.

The Irish economy has been traditionally portrayed as a product of its political divisions and the colonial legacy, divided and analysed in terms of the hegemonic tensions that exist on the island. Influenced by these divisions, academics have tended to look at a two-region approach to economic development, without adequately acknowledging the interactive nature of the island economy as a source of the crises or as a solution to systemic divergence.

McCann's definitive and dynamic history of the Irish economy circumvents conventional analyses and investigates the economic development of the island economy as a whole, highlighting where aggressive differentiation has been divisive and destabilising. He concludes by considering an alternative integrated and cohesive process of economic development.

Gerard McCann is a Senior Lecturer in International Studies at St Mary's University College (Queen's University, Belfast). He is Director of the Global Dimension in Education project and coordinates partnership initiatives with universities in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. He has written extensively on the European Union's development and education policies.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 The colonial economy (1831–1860)
Land and laissez-faire
The famine economy
2 Post-famine adjustment and industrialization
(1861–1921)
The new reality
War as stimulus
3 Partition and depression (1921–1939)
The northern ‘dominion’
Economic war
4 The impact of war (1939–1957)
War economy in the north
Post-war reconstruction
5 Modernization and the conflict economy (1958–1987)
Opening the north
Into the European Economic Community
The conflict economy in the north
The bleak 1980s
6 The peace dividend (1988–2001)
Integrating the border as an answer
Regionalization as development
The Agreement
7 Neoliberal Ireland
From model to miracle
The collapse
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Bibliography
Index