How does a young writer pay the rent? | Books | The Guardian

I get asked quite a bit about writing and Ireland, specifically the perceived upsurge of writing from Ireland in the last 10 years. My understanding of it pivots on the cultural digestion of the Celtic Tiger and its boons right in time for the whole thing to implode. When Ireland was rich and celebrating itself, I was a moody undergrad, confident I would better describe the finer elements of accelerated modernity in the state because I had grown up in the midst of it. Whenever I got my shit together, that is. Then the crash hit, the illusion faded, but the breach between contemporary Ireland and post-independence Ireland was complete: the writing changed.