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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
54 October-November 2025
Anglo-Irish mediocrity race
Both smug and
static, Ireland
thinks of itself
as upwardly
mobile; Britain is
traumatised by
post-industrial
decline
By Suzie Mélange
I
reland and Britain in asymmetric decline
It’s a rare thing for a former empire
and its longest-serving colony to
converge, not in glory, but in shared
mediocrity. Yet here we are: Britain and
Ireland — two islands once famed for poetry,
political giants, and world-shaping industry
— now locked in a two-horse race toward
cultural beige and aesthetic entropy. The
question is no longer which is in decline, but
which is declining better. The answer is
complicated by the fact that both can still
dazzle the world with moments of brilliance
— before promptly throttling their own
potential.
The chorus of praise
On paper, Ireland is an economic darling. The
Wall Street Journal gushes that the
government is “unbelievably rich, rolling in
clover”, thanks largely to US tech and pharma
multinationals parking profits through
Dublin’s low-tax gates. The IMF’s 2025 review
is equally eusive: “the Irish economy has
performed well and entered 2025 in a strong
position”, buoyed by resilient domestic
demand, subdued inflation, and a fiscal
On paper, Ireland is an
economic darling.
The
Wall Street Journal
gushes
that the government is
“unbelievably rich, rolling
in clover”
surplus that would make a petrostate blush.
Read only these reports, and you’d think
Ireland had invented prosperity itself.
Meanwhile, The Economist, sometimes
partial, tells Britain’s own tale of latent
greatness: four of the world’s top universities;
Cambridge as the densest innovation cluster
on Earth; 178 unicorns this century, more than
France, Germany, and Switzerland combined;
Rolls-Royce’s “UltraFan” poised to
revolutionise aerospace; DeepMind’s
AlphaFold rewriting molecular biology.
Britain, too, is presented as a land brimming
with potential, if only it would shake o its
small-mindedness and regulatory spaghetti.
But here’s the catch: the boosterism is as
misleading as it is flattering. The WSJ and IMF
celebrate Ireland’s GDP without noting it’s
inflated by Paul Krugman’s bastardy
“leprechaun economics” — profit-shifting by
foreign giants. Check out our average
disposable incomes instead if you’re a
begrudger. The Economist praises Britain’s
innovation while skating past the fact that
most of its unicorns are gone within a decade,
sold to foreign owners or relocated.
Housing as a Measure of
Failure
Let’s start where decline is most tangible: the
roof over one’s head. In Ireland, average rent
(for new tenancies) comes in hard at €1,850
nationally and €2,300 in Dublin as of mid-
2025, a 168% increase since 2010 according
to Daft.ie. Britain isn’t far behind: in London,
average rent broke £2,100 per month in early
2025. Homeownership is in retreat on both
islands — down from 80% to 66% in Ireland,
from 71% to 63% in the UK.
Both nations cling to the mythology of the
freehold, as if homeownership were a civil
religion. The result is a new serfdom — letting
agents instead of landlords, Instagram-ready
squalor instead of hearth and home. Níl aon
tinteán.
Building without heed
In Ireland, the architectural apex remains
Georgian Dublin — built under colonialism.
Since then: cheap plaster, blank façades, an
inability to build above four storeys except in
the wrong places along dual carriageways
A bit crp
Relity, UK
OPINION
October-November 2025 55
“piles of cardboard”. Britain holds the line on
one-o housing. Most counties in Ireland
permit 50% of their housing scattergun
wherever you’re having it, posing untold
expenses for rural broadband. Neither has
produced a radical architectural movement
since the 1970s. Starmer aims to pour
deregulation into the green belt. Ireland
doesn’t even have one.
In 2023, Ireland’s per-capita CO₂ emissions
were 6.5 tonnes, compared with 4.4 tonnes in
the United Kingdom — fully 2.1 tonnes higher
in Ireland. Since 2000, per-capita emissions
have declined by 43% in Ireland (a compound
annual reduction of about 2.4%) and by 53%
in the UK (about 3.2% per year). That’s despite
Ireland’s Greens’ two spells in government,
and the fact the UK broke the back of its
emissions before 2000 by closing its dirty
coal plants.
Two drunks, one lamppost
Is there a winner in this decline? Ireland oers
a madly new-found superiority complex,
higher wages, softer weather, and the illusion
of progress; Britain oers declinist anger,
better trains, better museums, and more
openly xenophobic politics. One wears
nostalgia in a tea towel; the other wears
Silicon Valley’s lanyard.
The tragedy isn’t just the decay — it’s the
mediocrity. For all the IMF’s plaudits and the
WSJ’s swooning, Ireland’s miracle is fragile
and exclusionary. For all The Economist’s
optimism, Britain’s innovation engine
sputters in the shadow of a sclerotic state.
Like two drunks leaning on each other to
stay upright, Ireland and Britain stagger
forward — capable of genius, mired in self-
satisfaction, and locked in the slow race to the
bottom.
Still as you know, in Ireland things have
never been better; in Britain, never worse.
Best not to think about China.
and on Tara St overhanging Trinity College.
The €2.2bn National Children’s Hospital
(original budget €650m) stands as an
unfurnished monument to dysfunction.
Across the Irish Sea, Britain answers with
Sizewell C’s cost ballooning from £23bn to
£43bn and Grenfell Tower’s £10m
“refurbishment” that installed lethal
cladding. Both have surrendered to
“Tescofication” — a suburban paste smeared
across every high street, obliterating
character as every little bit is counted by the
private sector.
Infrastructure: big talk, bigger
delays
Ireland’s rail network is so skeletal it makes
post-Brexit Britain look Swiss. The Western
Rail Corridor remains a fantasy, Dublin’s
MetroLink has been “planned” since 2000
(€15bn unless Dermot Desmond keeps us all
in private metal boxes). Britain’s Elizabeth
Line did open in 2022, but at £19bn — more
than NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. Cycling
infrastructure is promised in Dublin, funded
in London, a reality in neither. Prefer Paris.
The innovation paradox
Britain still shines in advanced manufacturing,
life sciences, and AI. Rolls-Royce’s UltraFan
uses carbon-fibre blades, ceramic
composites, and 3D-printed parts.
Manchester’s graphene discovery promises
satellites and semiconductors in space.
DeepMind’s AlphaFold won a Nobel. AI
startups like Wayve and Arondite are
redefining autonomous driving and defence
tech.
Ireland, too, sells itself as a tech hub. But
here’s the dierence: Britain’s breakthroughs
are homegrown, if often sold abroad; Ireland’s
tech sector is largely foreign-owned, its tax
policy the magnet, not the talent pipeline. The
WSJ praise skips the fact that Ireland’s
industrial base is so narrow that a change in
US tax law could strip away much of its
“miracle” overnight.
Culture in decline
The UK once gave us Shakespeare; now it
exports Love Island and Nigel Farage
podcasts. Ireland birthed Joyce and Yeats;
now it funds TikTok influencers through
Creative Ireland. In 2023, Ireland’s core arts
budget, minus the Arts Council’s IT screw-up,
was €36m — about the cost of 15 Dublin
houses — while Britain slashed Arts Council
grants to regional theatres by up to 100%.
Universities in both are bloated with
administrators and obsessed with
“internationalisation strategies” that treat
students as “units”. Critical thinking is
waning: only 6% of UK school-leavers and
11% of Irish could identify misinformation, in
recent surveys.
Health, Happiness, and Hollow
Statistics
The OECD’s Better Life Index gives Ireland
higher income and life expectancy (82.3
years) than the UK (81.1 years). Poverty risk
after tax: ~13% in Ireland, ~18.6% in the UK.
But in 2024, more Irish emigrated than
immigrated. Dublin’s population continues to
burgeon, now 1,534,900 people — 28.5% of
the national total. NHS waiting lists hit 7.6m
in 2025; Ireland’s HSE lost over a quarter of
junior doctors last year.
Youth well-being is grim: one in three Irish
15-year-olds is unhappy (UNICEF), youth
suicide rates are above OECD averages and
we’re loneliness champs; UK teens face a
mental health crisis driven by isolation, body
image, and social media. 14% overall — and
21% of 18–45s in the oldest democracy (or
whatever) — said they’d prefer rule by a
“strong leader without elections” over
democracy. Ireland is frankly much less
bovine about these things.
The soaring smallness of
ambition
Britain’s problem, as Lady Stowell’s lordly
committee puts it, is “thinking too small”.
Entrepreneurs aim to be bought out rather
than build enduring companies. The
government talks up growth but leaves
energy costs crippling industry. Ireland’s
equivalent is gombeenism in a tech hoodie —
development dictated by short-term deals,
not long-term vision.
Both nations have planning systems that
produce box-ticking banality. Ireland still
bans flat roofs as “out of character” while
greenlighting housing called ‘Millrace Glen’
on suburban floodplains. Britain replaced
brutalism with what King Charles once called
Ireland offers a madly new-
found superiority complex.
higher wages, softer
weather, and the illusion
of progress; Britain offers
declinist anger better trains,
better museums, and more
openly xenophobic politics
