Red green prospects in Ireland

Abstract

“Ireland is the “Emerald Isle” in popular imagination. There is certainly some truth in this, since of all European countries the Republic of Ireland is the least ecologically ravaged. Ireland has been spared many of the ecological problems that afflict other Western capitalist countries due principally to its relatively underindustrialized nature. It is therefore a rather special case in the general development of red!green political dialogue of the type that typifies the realignment of European oppositional politics along an emerging continuum stretching from red/green/new social movements to conservative/christian democratic/neo‐fascist parties. The decks have now been cleared for the construction of a viable Irish eco‐social politics.”