Photo: iStock I am young enough to remember the Ireland of my childhood. I am one of Bertie’s babies, born just before the turn of the millennium, raised in the long glow of the Celtic Tiger’s era of greed and excess.
My earliest memories are of cranes on the skyline and a country that seemed to be expanding in every direction. Classmates went skiing. Families flew or took the ferry to France. GAA jerseys appeared in airports across Europe each summer. To a child, it felt as though growth was inevitable and that Ireland was on a one-way ascent toward prosperity and permanence. An island at the centre of the world.
I could never have imagined living anywhere else. Fast forward to 2026, and that certainty has evaporated. I graduated during a global pandemic. I look around now at the friends I grew up with, and many of them are gone: to Australia, to Canada, to the Gulf, to anywhere that offers the possibility of stability.
I am fortunate enough to divide my time between Ireland and Canada. Ireland is home; Canada is where I can afford to live. But I have long imagined returning permanently, buying a modest patch of land, restoring an old cottage, and raising children in the countryside that formed me. Maybe some chickens and a sheepdog for good measure.
He recently paid over €250,000 for a one-bedroom apartment in Ballymun requiring extensive renovation. No heat and little to no hot water”
Yet for many of my generation, that vision feels increasingly remote, if not already far out of reach.
One of my closest friends did everything we were told to do. He studied hard, completed a master’s degree, and secured a permanent civil service job. In another era in a normal-functioning country, that would have signalled a lifetime of security. Instead, he recently paid over €250,000 for a one-bedroom apartment in Ballymun requiring extensive renovation. No heat and little to no hot water. Days after moving in, his car was stolen from the underground car park.
Dystopian
It sounds almost like an RTÉ skit about the dystopian future, but that unfortunate reality is now upon us, here in post-pandemic modern Ireland.
Another couple I know, a teacher and a private-sector manager, both in stable employment, are living in a converted family space once used as a granny flat while they try to save for a deposit. The starting price for new builds in many parts of the country now exceeds €450,000. On an average salary, that represents decades of repayment and a level of debt that would once have seemed unimaginable.
For most young people, lived reality feels utterly detached from those macroeconomic indicators of prosperity. The cost of housing, childcare, insurance and energy have climbed”
Ireland remains one of the wealthiest countries in Europe on paper thanks to headline economic measures. It also has one of the highest rates of third-level education in the OECD. Corporation tax receipts have surged in recent years, accounting for a substantial portion of Government revenue, though economists regularly caution that this income is concentrated among a small number of multinational firms and may not be permanently reliable.
Yet for most young people, lived reality feels utterly detached from those macroeconomic indicators of prosperity. The cost of housing, childcare, insurance and energy have climbed exponentially. Nightlife has been decimated. Rural communities struggle to retain young families.
Discourse
Meanwhile, public debate and political discourse are often consumed by global issues while domestic pressures accumulate quietly at home. Ukraine, Gaza, Donald Trump. International events matter and rightly command attention. But so too does the steady rise in homelessness, which has increased significantly over the past decade, with more than 12,000 people now living in emergency accommodation across the country.
We are told that Ireland faces a declining birth rate and persistent emigration. But one must ask: how can young adults confidently form families and build their lives here if stable housing remains locked out of reach? Traditional Irish social teaching and values place the family at the centre of life. If family formation becomes prohibited or unattainable by economic factors, something foundational is wrong.
Ireland’s economic success places us alongside some of Europe’s most prosperous nations. It is hardly surprising that people from across the world choose to come here to build their lives”
Ireland is still beautiful, as it always was. It is still generous. It is still home. But there is a growing sense amongst my peers that the country educates its young superbly and then exports them and watches them build their lives elsewhere. Not because they want to leave, but because they feel they have little choice.
Ireland has long been shaped by emigration. For generations, our story was one of departure rather than arrival. Yet in what is statistically our wealthiest era, we now find ourselves wrestling with a different question: who can afford to remain?
Immigration has become one of the defining issues of our time. Ireland’s economic success places us alongside some of Europe’s most prosperous nations. It is hardly surprising that people from across the world choose to come here to build their lives. But many arrive to find a country struggling with housing shortages, strained public services and deep frustration among its own people. The tension that follows is not simply political; it is social, economic and, increasingly, generational.
Benefit
What is the long-term benefit of producing one of the world’s most educated workforces if other economies ultimately reap the reward? What happens when the current economic model falters? What remains when the boom inevitably becomes a bust? Have we invested enough in our communities, infrastructure, and family life, or has our Government relied too heavily on growth figures that do not translate into lived security?
It is hard to know where the next chapter leads. I think often of friends carrying half-million-euro mortgages into an uncertain future. I think of the children not yet born because stability feels postponed, and I wonder whether we have measured success in balance sheets rather than in the strength of families and communities.
I hope things will change. Ireland has reinvented itself before. But I worry that without humility and long-term thinking from those entrusted with leadership, we risk drifting further and further from the needs of ordinary families.
Still, I hold onto the hope that one day I will return for good to a small cottage in the countryside, a sheepdog at the door, perhaps a modest garden and a few hens in the yard. Not a life of excess, but one of rootedness. For all our economic success, that is what many of my generation quietly long for: not wealth, but the chance to build a stable life in the place we call home.