If you're a middle-class person visiting a pretty little city you've never seen before, you stop at the estate agent's window and fantasise about buying something. When I did that in Kilkenny in southern Ireland recently, I had a shock: it was affordable. A nice house round there can cost under EU150,000. The halving of property prices since the crash of 2008 is just one index of Irish suffering. A woman buttonholed me on Kilkenny's main street to lament that three of her four children had emigrated - as have nearly a tenth of Ireland's population since 2008. Many who stay will never repay their personal debts, let alone Ireland's debt for bailing out its failed banks.
中产阶级有个习惯，如果到了一个以前从未去过的小城市，发现这个城市很漂亮，他们会在房地产中介的橱窗前驻足，想象自己在这里置业。最近，在爱尔兰南部的基尔根尼(Kilkenny)，我就这么干了；不看不知道，一看吓一跳：这里的房子真便宜！附近地段一座不错的房子可能只要不到15万欧元。房价在2008年金融危机后遭到腰斩，只是爱尔兰人悲惨遭遇的体现之一。在基尔根尼一条主要街道上，一名妇人拉着我攀谈，向我倾诉她的烦恼：4个孩子有3个都移民了。自2008年以来，爱尔兰近十分之一的人口都做了同样的选择。留下来的人中，许多永远都不可能还清自己的个人债务，更不用说爱尔兰为纾困倒闭银行而欠下的债务了。