Pretty good Vanity Fair article about the Irish financial crisis

I remember when the crisis hit Dublin. In the space of a week, a flurry of for rent and for sale signs went up on properties along Dame Street, businesses closed, and my hopes of getting a job in Ireland after I graduated evaporated.

Funny how Michael Lewis mentions the property developers. When I came to Dublin in 2004, the first house I rented with my then-boyfriend was from a terribly stuck-up, pompous nouveau-riche type with his own real estate company (basically him and his wife, and a timid bird of a receptionish), which though I didn't know it at the time was a great indication of what the rest of Dublin society was like. Real estate dealers and property developers quickly became synonymous with brainless asshole in my view.