Born in 2009

Unemployment soared to 12% and rising. Emigration resumed — young Irish people, many of them now with European passports and global skills, were leaving for Australia, Canada, and the US. The government introduced savage austerity budgets, cutting public sector wages and social welfare.

Anger was real and growing. The Ryan Report into clerical abuse of children was published — an enormous document detailing decades of systematic abuse in institutions run by the Catholic Church. Ireland was reckoning with its past and terrified about its future.