According to economic historian Kevin O'Rourke, the Irish economy remained underdeveloped for extended periods of time after partition due to its continuing excessive dependence on an underperforming British economy.
Potato Famine a Major Cause of Poverty
This was the cause of the Great Potato Famine that began in 1845. The famine was caused by the water mold disease known as late blight, which resulted in crop failure three years in a row. This drove families further into poverty.
Ireland, too, had a depressed economy. The economic war with Britain from 1932 further depressed the Irish economy. The Irish government promoted a policy of protectionism and self-sufficiency, and attempts were made to start an industrialisation programme.
The state of 18th Century Ireland Poverty can be partly attributed to the devastation caused in the mid-17th century by the armies of Oliver Cromwell. These armies burned land, crops and food stores in their wake, making farming in Ireland difficult, and in some areas, impossible.
Ireland had been one of Europe's poorest countries for more than two centuries prior to this period of rapid economic growth.
According to Oxford economic historian Kevin O'Rourke, Irish independence coupled with membership of the European Union have been crucial to Irish economic prosperity. Membership of the European single market reduced Irish dependence on the British economy and facilitated a modernization of the Irish economy.
The poorest of the rich
This brought no economic benefit: unemployment rose from 6.6% in 1971 to 17.6% in 1987. The economist Dermot McAleese wrote that “high taxes, low confidence, high labour costs, excessive regulation and anti-competitive practices” plagued the Irish economy in the 1980s.
The landed proprietors in Ireland were held in Britain to have created the conditions that led to the famine. However, it was asserted that the British parliament since the Act of Union of 1800 was partly to blame.
After the English revolution brought Cromwell and his parliamentary forces to power, he sent armies to crush resistance in Ireland with extreme brutality. In whole areas, the Irish population was exterminated or forced to flee, and Scottish or English protestant colonies were established.
DUBLIN — More than 170 years ago, the Choctaw Nation sent $170 to starving Irish families during the potato famine. A sculpture in County Cork commemorates the generosity of the tribe, itself poor. In recent decades, ties between Ireland and the Choctaws have grown.
British assistance was limited to loans, helping to fund soup kitchens, and providing employment on road building and other public works. The Irish disliked the imported cornmeal, and reliance on it led to nutritional deficiencies.
Because the tenant farmers of Ireland—then ruled as a colony of Great Britain—relied heavily on the potato as a source of food, the infestation had a catastrophic impact on Ireland and its population.
The Irish economy entered severe recession in 2008, and then entered into an economic depression in 2009. The Economic and Social Research Institute predicted an economic contraction of 14% by 2010. In the first quarter in 2009, GDP was down 8.5% from the same quarter the previous year, and GNP down 12%.
Worldwide gross domestic product in 2021 was at about 12,183 USD per capita. GDP in Ireland, on the other hand, reached USD 100,172 per capita, or 504.18 billion USD for the whole country. Ireland is therefore currently ranked 25 of the major economies.
The economy of the Republic of Ireland is a highly developed knowledge economy, focused on services in high-tech, life sciences, financial services and agribusiness, including agrifood.
Even after adjusting for the cost of living, Ireland's gross domestic product (GDP) per person was 134pc above the bloc's average, making Ireland the second-richest country, behind Luxembourg.
The Normans first conquered Ireland in 1169 and aside from a brief decade of independence during the 1640s Ireland formed an integral part of the English imperial system, until 1922 and the foundation of modern state.
Resistance to British rule in Ireland had existed for hundreds of years. Irish nationalists, the majority of them Catholic, resisted this rule in a number of peaceful or violent ways up until the start of the First World War. Irish nationalists wanted Ireland to be independent from British control.
However, their reception upon arrival was hostile and unwelcoming. Workplaces began to advertise jobs in their windows with the words: 'Irish need not apply'. Newspapers began to publish stereotype images of 'Paddy', the Irish Frankenstein: unhygienic, violent, ungrateful and inherently criminal.
One modern estimate estimated that at least 200,000 were killed out of a population of allegedly 2 million.
By 1849, the forcible displacement of poor Irish cottiers, under the guise of relief legislation, became the major channel through which the Irish economy was remade. Thus, the British Government deliberately facilitated Irish deaths during the Great Famine, and therefore committed genocide against the Irish people.
The exorbitant rents imposed by the Ascendancy class of landlords contributed to the dependence on the potato while other crops were exported to pay the rent. Other foods were too expensive to buy. People also paid heavy tithes to the Church of Ireland until 1869 when it was Disestablished.
Between 1845 and 1855 more than 1.5 million adults and children left Ireland to seek refuge in America. Most were desperately poor, and many were suffering from starvation and disease. They left because disease had devastated Ireland's potato crops, leaving millions without food.
The main service industries are pharmaceuticals, chemicals, computer hardware and software, food products, beverages and brewing and medical devices computers and contribute to 29% of GDP.
At the start of the 1990s, Ireland was a relatively poor country by Western European standards, with high poverty, high unemployment, inflation, and low economic growth.