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| Home - City Guide - Dublin - City Overview | ||
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City Overview Riding on the back of the roaring success of the 'Celtic Tiger' economy, Dublin in the new millennium is a city on the rise and rise. Today in the Irish capital the traditional spectre of unemployment has been replaced by desperate advertisements in the media across the Irish Sea to fill vacancies. Business in many sectors is booming and the city overflows with tourists, who flock to Dublin to sample that infamous Irish craic (fun), filling tills all over the city as they go. Things have not always been so rosy for this thousand-year-old city. For much of the twentieth century Dublin was torn by strife and unrest. The city suffered for the first half of the century as it was enmeshed in a messy and violent divorce from Britain, and the religious and political 'Troubles' further north still dominate Irish politics. However, it is easy to see why tourists today head to Dublin in such large numbers - the city is full of atmospheric pubs where the 'craic' is spun with a well polished finish and the streets echo with the ghosts of artistic luminaries such as James Joyce and William Yeats. A plethora of buildings and museums convey a real sense of living history. Indeed it is this living history, through the medium of music and literature, that has brought Dublin such international acclaim. In the twentieth century a string of poets and writers immortalised the city, none more so than James Joyce whose seminal 'Ulysses', which depicts one day in Dublin, is considered by many literary critics to be the greatest novel of the twentieth century. In the new millennium the Dublin message is being carried forward by popular music acts like Westlife, the Corrs and, the biggest of them all, U2. Dubliners, however, are not content to rest on the laurels of this richly cultural history and alongside the smoky old bars, the museums and the folk music in the pubs, is a new Dublin comprised of funky style bars, rebuilt city streets and moneyed twenty-somethings. This new face of the city stems from the stunning economic success of Ireland in recent years, which has managed to combine hard fought for funding from the EU with sound financial acumen to stimulate high levels of growth. Key industries include electronics, teleservices, retail and tourism. Today Dublin's leafy parks are full of mobile phone swinging young professionals enjoying the summer, while in winter they seek refuge in Dublin's numerous bars. Dublin is a city that is undoubtedly booming and its citizens are intent on enjoying it while it lasts. It is no wonder that in Dublin today Irish eyes are well and truly smiling. |
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