Austerity, resistance and social protest in Ireland: movement outcomes

Abstract

The varying protest responses of European societies to structural adjustment programmes imposed by the European Union/European Central Bank/International Monetary Fund after the 2008 banking crisis have been one of the most intriguing sociological dimensions of the recent global economic recession. During the early years of the crisis, Ireland and Greece were often portrayed in the international media at opposing ends of a spectrum of protest, with Ireland indeed politically positioning itself in this way (Borooah 2014). The Greeks were characterised as taking to the streets in significant numbers to protest against austerity while Irish citizens meekly accepted their fate. Detailed research on protest in each context demonstrates that this contrast has been overdrawn (Pappas and O’Malley 2014; Power et al. 2015; Karyotis and Rudig 2015; Hearne 2015). However, a number of distinctive features of the Irish protest response to austerity merit critical consideration.