Born in 2001

The foot and mouth disease crisis briefly threatened to devastate Irish farming. The September 11 attacks in America sent shockwaves through the large Irish-American community and prompted Ireland to offer Shannon Airport as a stopover for US military flights — a decision that would generate political controversy for years. The dot-com boom was collapsing, but Ireland's broader economy remained strong.

The housing boom continued, with prices that would have seemed fantastical a decade earlier.