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A society that does not learn from its mistakes may be condemned to repeat them. Ireland was a poor country, generated a once-in-a-century boom during our lifetimes and allowed itself to be hijacked by corrupt and cute right-wing solipsists.

We asked an informed and not unrepresentative group of people to list who they think are the most influential people in Ireland; and to rank them unattributably. We did not seek to influence contributors’ views of what “influential” means, except to say that it extends beyond politics and perhaps embraces “making a difference in society”; and that the candidates must be alive. The contributors did not express any views on the merits of the people they ranked. We aggregated the contributions mathematically to form the list below.