The rolling hills from the banks of the Shannon River, to the rocky pastures just north of Galway, show a verdant land that sometimes looks almost tropical in its misty hues. It is an illusion, however, for this is a nation home to more sheep than people, and whose soil’s rocky composition and once sickly potatoes caused famine throughout the land.

THE COASTLINE of Ireland is breathtaking, and its farmlands are held dear by the country’s citizens. Throughout the landscape you can find fields separated by stone walls that divide farmlands. An abundance of sheep freely graze the fields year-round.

Perched atop a small hill near

Roundstone, one of the oldest fishing villages in the region of Connemara, lies what locals call a “Famine cottage.” Similar cottages are sprinkled throughout the countryside. Overgrown with moss and vines of foliage, there is a sturdy yet ominously empty cavity of what was once a home. Dotted across the landscape, these structures were dwellings to those who did not survive Ireland’s devastating 19th-century famine. Many either escaped to America or simply died out, leaving shells of homes like a forgotten oyster strewn on a barren sea-bed.

Dynamic Galway

Less than 75 kilometers away is the Galway of today, a young and dynamic university city whose streets spill with students day and night. In a country where the median age is 35 years, where jobs are plentiful and immigrants welcome – Ireland is a stark contrast to the same country decades ago. Most attribute the recent affluence of this country to the advent of the Internet and Ireland’s 1973 European Union accession.

“Ireland skipped the industrial revolution and went straight to education and the hightech industries,” says Ciaran Ganter, a 20-something entrepreneur sipping away a pint in a local pub. “That is one of the reasons why we were poorer 15 or 20 years ago. But now it has paid off, and you will notice that by a lot of our architecture that we don’t have big, ugly factories around the country.”

Ireland in the 1990s emerged as the “Celtic Tiger,” and it was the booming economy of Europe. This country wasn’t always so fortunate, however, and some even believe the phenomenon was no coincidence. Just venture into Kenny’s Bookshop and Art Gallery on High Street in Galway and prominently displayed you will find a hardcover book by Tom Garvin, that is adorned with a depressionera black-and-white photograph of a destitute-looking man gazing into an empty landscape. The book is titled, “Preventing the future: Why was Ireland so poor for so long?”

The role of the Church

The theory behind Garvin’s book, which has raised eyebrows and opened debate, rests on the notion that the lack of Ireland’s development in the decades after its 1921 independence was caused by the then-powerful Catholic Church, in whose interest it was to maintain an under-educated and subservient society. A lack of mass education denied preparation for life in the modern world, Garvin writes.

FAMINE COTTAGES are sprinkled throughout Ireland and are the architectural vestiges of the great 19th century famine, when millions of people were forced to either flee the country or perish.

It was only during the 1990s when a new and highly educated, technically trained – and by then largely secular workforce – came into being. It was then Ireland finally began to flourish, and according to the author, this happened a generation later than expected.

“Ireland is much more liberal now, the church doesn’t have so much influence,” says a confident Anna Metadjer, a humanities student at the National University of Ireland in Galway, “A lot of my friends don’t believe or don’t go to mass. Religion wouldn’t be as important to people our age now.”

Metadjer, in her early 20s, proudly wears a necklace adorned with a small cross. Her family roots in Ireland date back generations, and some ancestors are buried at the 6thcentury medieval monastery in Clonmacnoise, which to this day remains a popular tourist attraction located in a remote spot near the Shannon River.

The past of Clonmacnoise

Known for its scholarship and piety, Clonmacnoise thrived between the 7th and 12th centuries, and is the burial site of many kings. Plundered by the Vikings and Anglo-Normans, it fell to the English in 1552. Today, a group of stone churches, the remains of a cathedral, two round towers and three crosses remain.

IRELAND IS BLESSED with a lush landscape that sometimes feels tropical. While the sun shines brightly in this image, rain, dampness and drizzle are common.

Though not oblivious to the past, Metadjer has other things on her mind. Pondering her future and travel plans with her friends in a Galway pub is more the order of the day. She says how she wants to travel for a few years, only to return and acquire a house.

“It’s so expensive to get a house, but property and land means a lot to the Irish people, owning something,” she says. “A paddy will always buy a field, the saying goes. It’s the whole land thing, the whole history of Ireland, it was always a fight for land. The more property you own, the more standards you have, the more important you are.”

And the Irish are very much into the property market. They purchase property domestically and are also making land buys abroad. Whether it be it in Spain or Budapest, the Irish have gone international. Gone is the day of provincial Ireland.

EU had much to do with prosperity

“It has taken Ireland the best part of three quarters of a century after independence to really find its feet, and I think that the participation in the European Union has a lot to do with it because it has shown us that we can be part of a block other than the British Empire,” says Brendan, Earl of Rosse, who resides in a castle he and his ancestors have owned since 1620.

The Birr Castle, where he lives with his family, is located almost 90 kilometers from Galway on the way to the capital Dublin, and is home to a museum of astronomy and a carefully-maintained lush garden of trees collected over an entire century by his ancestors.

“Many of those who have had to leave this country during the first half a century of independence and were seen to be emigrating,” Brendan says. “Many of those are now returning, particularly the younger ones, who come with their skills and languages. Not only from North America, but from Europe and particularly from Germany.”

What kind of society are these newfound migrants venturing to? One that is more wealthy, more confident and more worldly than generations ago. Even Ireland’s legislators are taking the European bull by their horns. Take smoking. In March of last year, Ireland enacted the most progressive smoking regulations in Europe and was the first country in the world to introduce a nationwide plan to defacto ban smoking in workplaces, including pubs and restaurants. And the most surprising part is that the Irish followed their government’s edict.

Changing lifestyles

“Nine times out of ten, when you’re sitting at a bar and have a pint, you smoke three or four, or maybe even 10 cigarettes,” says Dave Wootton, a smoker who has a cigarette now and then outside of a Dublin pub. “And out of the 10 cigarettes that you do smoke you probably only get enjoyment out of one.

“I agree with the ban, it is very progressive. It has changed my smoking habits, because I would normally smoke about 10 cigarettes, and now I smoke maybe three. It most definitely changed my lifestyle,” he concludes.

The Irish are adapting and growing further from their tragic past. There is a certain and somewhat strange provincialism that can still be felt, however, it is an international provincialism - if such a thing is possible. The land-loving Irish have moved on, but they will never lose their practical sense and include their past in their future. The mist remains thick and raindrops fall quietly yet steadily onto the lush Irish landscape again, just as it has done for generations on the green horizon.

A nation once again
By Thomas Osbourne Davis

When boyhood’s fire was in my blood
I read of ancient freemen,
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
Three hundred men and three men;
And then I prayed I yet might see
Our fetters rent in twain,
And Ireland, long a province, be.
A Nation once again!
A Nation once again,
A Nation once again,
And lreland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!
So, as I grew from boy to man,
I bent me to that bidding
My spirit of each selfish plan
And cruel passion ridding;
For, yet I hoped some day to aid,
Oh, can such hope be vain?
When my dear country shall be made
A Nation once again!

“A Nation Once Again” is a song written sometime in the 1830s by Thomas Osbourne Davis (1814-1845). Davis was a founder of an Irish Catholic movement whose aim was the independence of Ireland. The song is a prime example of the “Irish rebel music” sub-genre (though it does not celebrate fallen Irish freedom fighters by name, or cast aspersions on the English occupiers as so many rebel songs do). The song’s narrator dreams of a time when Ireland will be, as the title suggests, a free land, with “our fetters rent in twain.” It has been recorded by many Irish singers and groups, notably John McCormack, The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners, The Wolfe Tones in 1964. In 2002, “A Nation Once Again” was voted the world’s most popular tune according to a BBC World Service global poll of listeners.