BIG TALK: Economic Freedom and Irish Independence

One of the key debates during the early decades of the Irish state after the 1921 Treaty was how to establish the foundations of an independent economic and financial system.

Here, Peter Ryan who has written about some of the debates within the revolutionary leadership, discusses how the first Cumann na nGaedhael government more or less jettisoned any ambition to break away from the British imperial economic system as it pertained to Ireland. He then explores how subsequent efforts by Fianna Fáil after 1932 were frustrated by the banking and commercial elite until they turned to overseas investment rather than Irish led industrial development.

Peter relates this to the economic ideas of Arthur Griffith and the school of nationalist ideas which influenced him and other Irish thinkers.

#gript