TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

SCENARIO 3: The Fairest County of them all… (National scenario: THE FRAGILITY OF MÉ FÉIN)
At 4.00pm, on an icy but crystal clear winter’s afternoon, I was interrupted in my quiet reading
by the ceili band that began to bellow out the tune, “the green, green grass of home”. The
warm, cosy pub was filled with people sitting, chatting and singing in high spirits. Gone were
the days of flashing lights and miniskirts. Nowadays, it was a few pints and a friendly chat. It
was electric feeling the community spirit gather momentum with the music. I sat there soaking
up the atmosphere and wondered how it had come to this, the feeling of closeness and similar
shared values. How did it all happen? What was the turning point when quality of life was made
a main priority? Why did people start enjoying shorter working hours, spending more time with
their families and engaging in their favourite leisure activities?
As far as I can remember, during the early 2000s, people lived to work and worked to live.
However, this was not to last and in 2007 the first signs of the Celtic Sloth appeared, by way of
the closure of Abbott Vascular in Galway, with the loss of 500 jobs. More and more international
companies based in Ireland began to downsize due to market conditions and they began to move
their investments out of Ireland to regions with a lower paid workforce. Incidents like this led to
a downturn in the economy in 2009. Galway and the rest of the region felt the brunt of it.
Unemployment rose and resources became scarce. However, communities in Galway seemed to
band together and come to terms with what had happened, by focusing on the opportunities
that emerged from the disaster. Galway communities felt that globalisation had started to
reduce the city’s cultures and roots, turning history and culture into a tourist image and ploy.
So, Culture and Creativity became the buzzwords in the quest to create innovative strategies to
tackle the Celtic Sloth.
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The city, in terms of economic growth,
changed direction dramatically: from a ‘bio’
industries hub to a niche market that feeds
into the services, cultural tourism and organic
lifestyle sectors. By 2012, Galway adopted a
ten year plan to guide the city’s cultural
development. “Cultural County Living” was
the campaign that initiated the ten year plan
and promoted Galway as a brand. A national
marketing campaign was launched and the
city organised a number of events that would
provide strong visuals and resound the
message to promote the cultural sector across
the country and out to the world. By 2025, a
cultural Renaissance had begun with the
opening of a new iconic, one of a kind, art
gallery called Birth that held the largest
collection of modern art pieces in the world.