The proximate cause of this problem is the housing crisis, but the underlying reason is that Ireland’s political spectrum is still broken due to being defined by its reactions to colonialism and Catholicism. Beneath the surface-level tides of imperialism, rebellion, theocracy, and liberalisation is a deep nationwide conformism and lack of agency. There is a ‘learned helplessness’ from this illiberal past that conditions the population into modes of subservience and rebellion, with nothing in between.

Because the reactions against colonialism were both left-wing in character (republican and social liberalism) the entire population thinks of themselves as superficially left wing. The result is that each generation grows up with the same abstract ideas that problems are caused by “greed” and “corporations” but no conception of how oligarchy and government actually work to maintain an oppressive class system that is truly brutal compared even to much of western Europe.

The wealthy and

Keep reading this article on Marginal Revolution.