Instability in the Middle East did much to destabilise the politics and economics of 1970s Ireland, as the resultant oil crises upended plans and diluted optimism. Irish entry to the European Economic Community (EEC), backed by 83 per cent of the electorate, was soured in 1973 by the oil embargo imposed on western powers due to the Yom Kippur War. Historian Ciarán Casey observes in his 2022 history of the Department of Finance that plans for economic and social development were compromised by “unanticipated shocks”. Minister for Finance in 1973, Richie Ryan, reacted by seeking to stimulate the economy but then went into reverse mode due to the spike in inflation. Oil prices quadrupled from 1973-76 and inflation rose to what were described as “frightening” rates of 17 per cent in 1974 and 21 per cent in 1975.

Such was the scale of the international surprise in 1973 – “the shock of the global” to use a phrase adopted by historians – that it suggested globalisation could be as threatening as it was empowering, and governments internationally were under domestic pressure to take the poison out of its sting, some believing they could spend their way out of trouble.

Oil had soured things again by the end of that decade due to the Iranian revolution in 1979. In May that year, the minister for industry and commerce, Des O’Malley, announced that tourists arriving to........

© The Irish Times