Ship of Fools

How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger

By: Fintan O'Toole

Narrated by: Roger Clark

Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Between 1995 and 2007, the Republic of Ireland was the worldwide model of successful adaptation to economic globalisation. The success story was phenomenal: a doubling of the workforce; a massive growth in exports; a GDP that was substantially above the EU average. Ireland became the world's largest exporter of software and manufactured the world's supply of Viagra. The factors that made it possible for Ireland to become prosperous - progressive social change, solidarity, major state investment in education, and the critical role of the EU - were largely ignored as too sharply at odds with the dominant free-market ideology. The Irish boom was shaped instead into a simplistic moral tale of the little country that discovered low taxes and small government and prospered as a result.

There were two big problems. Ireland acquired a hyper-capitalist economy on the back of a corrupt, dysfunctional political system. And the business class saw the influx of wealth as an opportunity to make money out of property. Aided by corrupt planning and funded by poorly regulated banks, an unsustainable property-led boom gradually consumed the Celtic Tiger. This is, as Fintan O'Toole writes, "a good old-fashioned jeremiad about the bastards who got us into this mess". It is an entertaining, passionate story of one of the most ignominious economic reversals in recent history.

©2010 Fintan O'Toole (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“O’Toole...has produced a coruscating polemic against the cronyism and corruption that in his view helped to fuel the boom…. [H]is highly readable book is a salutary reminder that cronyism, light regulation and loose ethics can be a deadly combination.” (Financial Times)

Up the Bubble (lol)

Bought this for a little slice of Irish history. Instead I got an insight into the minds & hearts of the people. With a second bigger housing bubble still growing at the end of 2018, it's a shame few lessons were learned.

The Title Says It All!

Would you consider the audio edition of Ship of Fools to be better than the print version?

Yes. Having Roger Clark narrate in his gentle brogue was a great touch.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Berty Ahearn; the crooked Irish ward healer who exemplified the feckless, hare-brained attitude of the Irish government.

What about Roger Clark’s performance did you like?

Roger Clark gives a wonderful turn with this narration. You can catch the flavour of the author's justifiable ire concerning the whole sordid mess.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

A government of the crooks, by the crooks and for the crooks!

Any additional comments?

My only quibble is the authors equating crookedness with conservatism. This is Ireland, after all. A liberal government in power would have just robbed the cookie jar under a different banner.

Modern Irish Politics

Funny and wry look at contemporary Irish politics as Ireland rose as the Celtic Tiger and later fell, focusing on greedy developers, corrupt or weak politicians, and the voters who weren’t skeptical enough. I saw many interesting parallels to the American situation.
It was fun as an American to listen while driving around Ireland. The narration was particularly well done. One downside for the American listener - sometimes with the lack of familiarity with Irish politics it became word soup to the listeners in our car. There was also a ton of detail, which might have made more sense in print.

Never Trust An Irish Bank Again

In this audiobook, the author goes into the political, economic and financial regulatory history of the Republic of Ireland (the "Celtic Tiger" lauded in the 90s). You'll meet shady politicians, land developers, and more, some lineages stretching as far back as the 60s and 70s, and come away finding how deeply rooted and tacitly accepted these corrupt practices are.

One chapter goes into how all the big companies from America, Italy and around the globe domiciled themselves in Dublin to take advantage of tax loopholes so large, you could hide Bermuda in them. Admittedly, some of the reinsurance schemes and paper companies are a bit sophisticated to follow, but the despicable greed comes through loud and clear in the narration.

I may never trust another Irish bank again after learning all of this. I used to own shares of AIB but not anymore (fortunately I sold before the meltdown), and never again. The book will help you understand the financial reform and economic austerity that the Republic of Ireland has to go through today to pick-up the pieces of the wreckage described up through 2008 in the book, and why democratic though it may be, the electorate simply continue to accept these practices as long as their local politicians bring home the bacon.

The one detraction I felt from the audiobook were the quantity of numbers being thrown out there to the listener in the narrative (particularly in the earlier part of the book). The author moves arbitrarily from one year to another comparing numbers: GDPs, tax revenue, per capita income, real estate development measures, etc. This can be hard to follow, especially in the audio format.

Otherwise, it's a good listen for a deep and dark look into the underbelly of Irish politics and finance that the travel brochures and Michael Flatley won't give you.

corruption and greed

With the default of Greece I thought it might be appropriate to read about some of the other troubled economies of the E.U. I saw this book by O’Toole and thought it might be interesting and I must say it sure was.

O’Toole is a commentator and columnist for the Irish Times and is an excellent writer. The book is written in a clear concise manner and is comprehensively researched. This is a serious book, it argues that financial power should be regulated, that crooks should be punished, that corruption should be exposed and not rewarded at the ballot box. O’Toole also outlines changes the Irish need to make to rebuild their country into a strong, financially viable country again.

O’Toole points out that the Irish boom came about from the outside not by changes, growth, and desire of the people. The government encouraged corporations to come to Ireland by offering little or no taxes, and lax regulations.

Wealthy land speculators had cornered urban markets, driving housing prices up 500 per cent in a decade. O’Toole points out that when the crash of 2008 came, the GDP shank, housing prices went into free fall, its banking system collapsed and gross indebtedness outstrips that of Japan. The author blames corrupt politicians, lax regulation, bankers complicit in fraud and tax evasion.

The pity of it O’Toole says is that the boom years were largely squandered. For a brief moment the county had the resources to improve its crumbling social facilities instead it blew it. Everyone should read about this subject and learn about the hazard of government debt before more and more countries follow in the wake of Greece. Roger Clark narrated the book.

Funny!

Hilarious! Author's fetish for government and regulation is amusing and funny, given his morbid-serious-moralistic tone :-) Enjoyed this work very much, with detailed color and flavor of modern Ireland.

Good for getting a view on Irish politics/econ

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

If you would like to get a view on what is going in Irish politics and economics (and demystify the celtic tiger phenomenon), this book is a good source. The problem with the story is that the author didn't separate two things: corruption and cronyism on the one side, and market economy and small government on the other side. It looks like he implicitly assumes that the lack of regulation is a very bad thing per se. While defending this stance might take another book, he should have explicitly articulated his views in this book. It is important, because it is an accepted view that the Irish economy grew so fast due to the small government. Which means that not everything was that bad in the deregulated Irish economy.

Many parallels

Everything O’Toole writes is incisive and witty. Most of the details of the mind-boggling cupidity and delusions of the Celtic Tiger years are unique to Ireland, but the impulses, patterns and justifications are universal. There is much for an American listener to recognize.

Rails against capitalism

Mr. O'Toole has a great story to tell about the downfall of the Celtic Tiger. Unfortunately, he rails about corporate welfare, crony capitalism, and capitalism while supporting EU State funded welfare and socialism. Perhaps the mistakes made were bad business decisions and fraudulent endeavors instead of capitalism. If corporate welfare is deplorable as described why isn't social welfare deplorable? Mr. O'Toole's reasoning is not sound.

Mr. O'Toole fails to make the case that the pursuit of capitalist goals brought down the Ireland financial system. He offers no data to support his hatred of capitalism but offers idealist notions of socialism. For example, he asserts that the Irish economy grew after 1995 because, "it had grown slowly before that;" and while "every other country experienced a post-WW2 boom" Ireland languished until the 1990's. At that time, "it caught up with the living standards of the region it belongs to in Western Europe. And got to where it should have been all along. The energy unleashed by the process of catching up combined with not having an old heavy industrial base allowed Ireland to outperform its European neighbors." Mr. O'Toole offers no economic data to support these notions. For example, Ireland had highly centralized economy in the 1940s and '50s. The centralized economy brought about many shortages in food, energy, and jobs. I would argue that only when the economy became deregulated, taxes were slashed did capital and entrepreneurs move into Ireland.

Socialism by its very nature confiscates assets from people to support a welfare state. Taking money from those that work to give to those that do not.

The Celtic Tiger came to exist by slashing taxes and deregulating the economy. The tiger was slain by corruption not by capitalism.

Tenuous support for the author’s agenda

Corruption is not unique to a political regime. I am willing to believe his assertions of corruption, though even some of those appear overblown, or one-sided. But the extrapolation to the author’s policy preferences are barely, if at all, supported. The book was useful from the perspective of an American who is relatively ignorant of recent Irish political and economic history.