Forty years ago, Ireland was a stagnant, backward, failed region of the British economy. Although we were politically independent, we were locked in post-colonial stagnation. We were unfree and unsuccessful in economic terms. We began to change in the 1960s with a determined effort to invest in young Irish people in the form of education. Television opened our eyes to the wider world and we moved away from undue respect for authority and the old nostrums of previous generations. Our finest literature had been banned and our best authors had sought solace abroad.