Come Here To Me!

Blogland is a small place. Dublin Blogland is even smaller. One of our favourite blogs has always been Dublin Opinion, with its mix of culture, history, politics and music it’s up a similar street and was one of the sites that inspired us to hit the ‘Register’ button on WordPress in the first place and give it a go ourselves.

Conor McCabe from Dublin Opinion has a new book hitting the shelves this weekend, entitled ‘Sins Of The Father’. It’s a look at the car crash that is the Irish economic collapse. If you follow that blog you’ve no doubt seen some of Conor’s posts on the economic situation which make you move the chair back a bit from the computer and just go ‘fucking hell’. His use of social and historical sources well beyond the confines of many economists areas of research has always offered unique insight on the collapse.

It’s been published by The History Press, who have been on a roll as of late in my opinion with some excellent works like Maurice Curtis’ look at militant catholicism in Ireland and Pat Poland’s history of the Cork fire service. I’ve always enjoyed Conor’s historical research, particularly around Irish labour and working class history, and think historians always bring a unique approach to all studies of the present.

I don’t expect to find ‘sure we are where we are’ in its conclusion, to say the least.

These are the questions set by this book. It will look at the development of the Irish economy over the past eight decades, and will argue that the 2008 financial crisis, up to and including the IMF bailout of 2010 and the subsequent change of government, cannot be explained simply by the moral failings of those in banking or property development alone. The problems are deeper, more intricate, and more dangerous if we remain unaware of them, but also potentially avoidable in the future if we break the cycle.