Rosie Meade is a Lecturer in the School of Applied Social Studies at University College Cork

1. Introduction - Rosie Meade and Fiona Dukelow
2. The birth of Indymedia.ie: a critical space for social movements in Ireland - Margaret Gillan and Laurence Cox
3. In the way of development: Tara, the M3 and the Celtic Tiger - Conor Newman
4. Carts, horses and carriages: love and (same-sex) marriage in the 21st century - Angela O'Connell
5. Making 'race' an issue in the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum - Steve Garner
6. 'The centre of everything': Ireland at the Dundrum Town Centre - Denis Linehan
7. 'Taking back the neighbourhood': the introduction of ASBOs - Paul Michael Garrett
8. All that shimmers is not gold: the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and garda accountability - Vicky Conway
9. State to the rescue: the bank guarantee and Ireland's financialised neo-liberal growth model - Fiona Dukelow
10. Worlds turned upside down? The older people's uprising 2008 - Rosie Meade
11. Cutting back on equality - John Baker, Kathleen Lynch and Judy Walsh
12. The Ryan Report: reformatory and industrial schools and twentieth century Ireland - Eoin O'Sullivan
13. Gay in the GAA: the challenge of Dónal Óg Cusack's 'coming out' to heteronormativity in contemporary Irish culture and society - Debbie Ging and Marcus Free
Index

This book re-visits and re-thinks some recent defining events in Irish society. Each chapter focuses on an event that has occurred since the start of the twenty first century. Some were high profile, some were 'fringe' events, others were widely discussed in popular culture at the time. A number of chapters focus on key moments of protest and popular mobilisation.
All of the events covered provide rich insights into the dynamics of Irish society; exposing underlying and complex issues of identity, power and resistance that animate public debate. The book ultimately encourages readers to question the sources of, limits and obstacles to change in contemporary Ireland.
The book brings together critical commentators from a diverse range of social science disciplines. These writers make important contributions to intellectual life and discourse about social, economic and cultural issues in today's Ireland. This makes for an original, timely and genuinely inter-disciplinary text.