A quick way to understand modern Ireland would be to say that its dominant party, Fianna Fáil, founded a century ago, tried and failed to create two new social classes. It then succeeded, partly by accident, in creating an entirely different social class – which it is now, bizarrely, dissolving.

The first failed effort was the creation of a peasantry. One of the party’s founding aims was “the distribution of the land of Ireland so as to get the greatest number possible of Irish families rooted in the soil of Ireland”. This was Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a republic made up of sturdy citizens who were free and independent because they had their own land.

It was not in itself an ignoble aspiration but it came about 150 years too late. And it was not compatible with the Catholic Church’s insistence that every married woman must go forth and multiply without let or hindrance. Smallholdings and very large families don’t go together. Contraception would have been rather helpful to the fulfilment of Fianna Fáil’s social aims – but it was anathema to the party’s religious values.

Thus while Fianna Fáil did largely complete the job of transferring land from the old landlord class to the former tenants, the farms that resulted from this process were destined for eldest sons only. The rest of the children – often upwards of half a dozen – had to go elsewhere.

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Hence the need to create a second social........

© The Irish Times