Vitali's Ireland Time Travels in the Celtic Tiger

Vitali's Ireland offers a unique perspective on 21st century Irish cultural identity, delivered in a style rich with his typical sardonic wit.


Ukrainian-born Vitali Vitaliev, an award-winning travel writer and journalist, uses his outsider's perspective to recount his Irish adventures. A renowned cultural observer, he muses on the nation's quirks and stereotypes, whilst his reference to mid-19th century guide books provides an insightful historical comparison. The result is an affectionate if slightly perplexed portrait of a nation in transition.


Vitali's time in Ireland coincided with the period of the now dead and buried "Celtic Tiger' yet the author saw no sign of it.


At times, he recounts, "I was ready to believe that its very existence was a myth, a creation of the lazy journalists' and inept economists' imagination."


Daily life in the Republic of Ireland, he observed, was more reminiscent of that in a third world country, rather than of a modern industrial and financial "mini-giant' – as it was at that time being described by the world media.


"During my travels, I developed a chronic dislike for the elusive and intrusive Tiger. It simply did not fit with Ireland's pristine landscape and even less so – with the nation's poetic soul."


The author notes it was obvious the much-hyped Irish technology boom was not going to work. Vitali's Ireland demonstrates how irrelevant and at times plain ridiculous the "Celtic Tiger Ireland" notion could appear to a perceptive and profoundly sympathetic outsider.


Vitali Vitaliev is an award-winning Ukrainian-born international journalist, broadcaster and author of eleven books. He has lived and worked in Russia, England, Scotland, Australia and Ireland.


"Vitali is big hearted, broad minded and smart as a whip . . . A Ukranian-born Russian exile whose worldwide perambulations have produced a string of fine, intelligent works of idiosyncratic reportage, this somewhat unusual visitor offers a valuable gift to us Irish readers: The outside perspective . . . Vitaliev wanders the 32 counties like some kind of gormless, amiable pilgrim, half-Mr Bean, half-Socrates. . . . (His) observations on the folly of the Northern conflict are heartbreaking in their simplicity and world-weary resignation . . . I could fill this paper with quotable extracts"
Hugh Tynan, in the Irish Examiner Weekend


"Slightly eccentric and highly enjoyable . . . Slightly cranky, sometimes bewildered, often meandering back across his life and generally highly entertaining, Vitali's Ireland is very much an outsider's look into our country. If he doesn't know what to make of us, it is maybe because he is viewing us at a junction where we don't know what to make of ourselves."
Dermot Bolger, in Sunday Business