Abstract

Over the past sixty years, the Republic of Ireland has experienced two forms of americanisation. One of these was aid during the early post-war decades from the US government or from European agencies that owed their existence to US government funding, like the European Productivity Agency. The second was investment by US private corporations that began to increase in importance from the late 1960s. This paper notes some contrasts between the two. The early period was one in which a productivity drive was unsuccessfully attempted: the latter was one in productivity statistics were rendered increasingly incredible by the transfer pricing indulged in by multinational corporations. European `free’ (as opposed to `red’) trade unions were promoted by US government policy against a Cold War backdrop but, as US corporate investment has becomes increasingly important, Irish unions in the private sector came to experience the same `slow strangulation’ that was being visited on their US counterparts.