Wide Angle: Mixed Blessings: Changing Irish Identity

Ireland never had an industrial revolution—its economy leaped from agrarian gloom into high-tech high-gear almost overnight. This Wide Angle case study visits Limerick, one of the country’s largest cities and the epitome of the Celtic Tiger’s rise. Once the blighted setting of Angela’s Ashes, today’s Limerick boasts the glories and the growing pains of all economic boomtowns: heavy foreign investment, a burgeoning services industry, high levels of immigration—and a real estate explosion in which a venerable Jesuit church is on sale to the highest bidder.

The program profiles Limerick citizens whose lives are caught up and conflicted by this avalanche of change. In addition, it features an in-depth discussion between anchor Daljit Dhaliwal and Irishman Peter Sutherland, UN Special Representative on Migration & Development and BP Chairman.