Abstract

The book 'Southern Europe?' considers how Southern Europe has been conceptualised within contemporary history and social science. There were four 'pigs' (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) but the bailout crisis involved five countries - the fifth PIIGS was Ireland. Like its four companions, Ireland has been seen as a modernising society, as a part of peripheral Europe, and even stereotyped as inefficient and exotic. Including Ireland in the discussion enables us to begin to disentangle social processes from more geographical or spatial issues.