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In 2009 Ireland confronted the full force of the economic crisis that had followed the property boom. What had initially appeared to be a sharp recession became a transformation of public life: building sites lay idle, businesses retrenched, joblessness rose rapidly and the State assumed responsibilities in banking that would shape politics for years. The Government was led by Taoiseach Brian Cowen of Fianna Fáil, in coalition with the Green Party, while Brian Lenihan Jr, Minister for Finance, became the public face of emergency financial policy. The year’s defining events were not confined to balance sheets. Ireland reconsidered its place in Europe, faced devastating evidence about abuse in Church-run institutions, and saw both the vulnerability and resilience of the Northern Ireland peace settlement.
The year opened under Bertie Ahern, Fianna Fáil leader and Taoiseach since 1997, heading a coalition with the Green Party and Progressive Democrats. His resignation on 6 May ended an unusually long tenure at the centre of Irish politics, one associated both with the Good Friday Agreement era and with the years of rapid economic growth. Brian Cowen, formerly Minister for Finance and Tánaiste, became Taoiseach on 7 May. He inherited a government with the same Dáil majority but a far less favourable economic environment.
In 1990 Ireland experienced an unusually vivid succession of public moments: a European presidency, a breakthrough summer in football, Nelson Mandela’s visit, a presidential election that overturned political expectations, and a landmark change in criminal law. Together they gave the Republic an outward-looking appearance that contrasted with everyday insecurity. Unemployment remained high, emigration was familiar to many households, and the Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats coalition under Charles Haughey governed a country still emerging from the fiscal and economic crises of the 1980s. In Northern Ireland, the conflict continued to take lives even as tentative new political thinking appeared.
