Some psychoanalytic reflections on the Irish real estate bubble

Abstract

We use the recent destructive Irish residential real estate bubble and its parlous economic and social consequences to explore the role of repressed ancestral suffering in driving institutional and broader societal responses to contemporary events. We demonstrate how a traumatic past can become interwoven in the fabric of the social order, rendering state and parastatal organizations and their leaders powerless. The concept of intergenerational transmission of trauma is key to our analysis. We show how the Irish obsession with owning property and land is a psychic attempt to transcend the traumatic past to “inhabit” an idealized pre-colonial land leading to emergent feelings of empowerment, euphoria and omnipotence. We also explain why the Irish real estate bubble is being re-enacted so soon. The potential to enhance interpretation through insights from literature, drama, and poetry is illustrated.