The Celtic Tiger cub

Origins

The Celtic Tiger cub is a distant relative of the yuppie found in '80s Britain and America. But, as many commentators have pointed out, while the crass and selfish yuppy lifestyle came under media fire even in the `I'm all right, Jack' '80s, the Celtic Tiger cubs are exclusively worshipped in the Irish media. Little or no criticism is levelled at them, nor is there much debate on the effects their unrestrained greedhead philosophy will have in the long term on Ireland's social fabric. While avaricious auctioneers further inflate house prices and while the Revenue Commissioners persecute the low-paid with vindictive and punitive taxes and studiously ignore the widespread tax fraud amongst the affluent, public sector employees are locked into wage deals that mean the only way to afford a house on their salaries is to sell an organ or two.

None of this effects the Celtic Tiger cub; his smugness is an impenetrable shield against economic and social reality. He's one of the new Irish Quality-- Business and Finance magazine tell him so every issue, though he'd have a hard time explaining to you what it is he actually does, apart from spend inordinate time on his mobile phone (a device so important to the cub that he will not deactivate anywhere and is usually set to use the most irritating tune when it rings). If the Irishman of forty years ago gave too little time to thoughts of this life and concentrated excessively on the Hereafter, the cub rarely takes the time to think farther ahead than the next dinner party, where he and a bunch of his pig-ignorant mates will monopolise the corner of a restaurant and talk very loudly about how much their houses are worth until the Merlot runs out. Property prices are very important to Irish people generally, who have only recently made the transition from a purely agricultural economy and still have the peasant desire for a couple of acres to call their own, but are of particular importance to Celtic Tiger cubs who seem to measure their self-worth by the extent to which some builder or auctioneer has ripped them off. In fact, refusing to talk about property prices with a cub is considered the height of bad manners (mainly because the cub can't think of anything else to talk about), while pronouncing the words `negative equity' within earshot of a group of cubs will probably precipitate a riot.

The archetypal Celtic Tiger cub will come from one of the upper-middle class areas of South County Dublin: Blackrock, Foxrock, Monkstown, etc. Even if he comes from elsewhere, he will adopt adopt the accent of these estates-- the dreaded `DART accent' whose vowel-mangling characteristics generate much the same revulsion among the Irish as the `estuary accent' generates among the British. His parents will be stolid, `plain people of Ireland' country types who speak Irish at home and are active in the local Fianna Fáil cumann. The cub himself will have an Irish name-- not a common one like Sean or Seamus, but an ancient jaw-dislocating whopper his parents fished out of an Irish saga to show off their `book-larnin': Fiachra, Concobhar, Aodoghan, Seadna, and the like. All female Celtic Tiger cubs are called Fionnola.

Age

Mid-twenties to thirties. Older Celtic Tiger cubs are too crippled with insane mortgage repayments and their childrens' private school fees to go to the pub much.

Appearance

Generally well, if somewhat ostentatiously, turned-out. Easy to spot in pubs and easy to annoy by shouting, `Sell! Sell!', at the top of your voice when they answer their mobile phone. But you wouldn't do that, of course. Only students behave like that.

Conversation topics

The Irish property market. The Irish property market. The Irish property market. The Irish property market. The Irish property market.

Drinks

The more refined cubs drink wine, not because they actually like it, but to show off just how refined they are. Junior cubs will inevitably request some involved and complicated cocktail that requires two barmen to make and contains Mongolian vodka, Amazon tree frog venom, or radioactive isotopes-- basically, anything that's going to be difficult or impossible for the bar to stock-- so they can roll their eyes heavenwards and mutter darkly about living in `the sticks' when the barman pleads ignorance. Beer, if drunk by cubs at all, will be of the expensive bottled imported variety.