by Gary Alexander
March 17, 2026
In 2025, Ireland won the gold medal for growth in Europe, as its GDP soared 10.7% for the full year, with low inflation (under 2%), and record high employment, showcasing Ireland’s remarkable comeback from being one of the five ailing “PIIGS” (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) a dozen years-ago.
Ireland’s GDP has risen (in current U.S. dollar terms) from $200-billion in 2010 to $700-billion last year:
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
What is the secret of Ireland’s rapid resurrection within an otherwise slow-growth European Union?
Ireland’s foremost engine of growth has been its ultra-low corporate taxation rates, set at 12.5% in 2003. Those rates were cut in half to 6.5% for Knowledge Development companies doing R&D in Ireland. This fact caused great gnashing of teeth at Janet Yellen’s Fed, when she pushed for a “minimum global corporate tax rate” of at least 15%. In 2024, Ireland finally relented and raised its corporate rate to 15%.
Ireland has also aggressively pursued foreign direct investment (FDI) by the U.S. and other major global powerhouses. They have so far lured over 1,000 multi-national corporations to invest in Ireland, including most of the Mag-7 giants. One impact is foreign-owned companies now comprise 93% of Irish exports.
Obviously, capital migrates to nations where it is most welcome, and Ireland is the most welcome nation for capital investment in Europe. As a result, Ireland’s 2025 growth rate was six-times the EU as a whole and double any other nation in Europe: The silver and bronze medals go to micro-nations Monaco (+5.4% GDP) and Moldova (+5.1%). Meanwhile, the three biggest EU powers were very close to a recession, including Germany (+0.3%), Italy (+0.6%) and France (+1.0%), with the Finnish economy below zero.
Silver and Bronze Medals Go to Eastern Europe – With Poland as the Other Rising Star
In Eastern Europe, Poland is the best economy, at +4% growth, and Poland boasts the best growth of any mainland European EU economy since 1990, due in large part to its free-market economic policies.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Poland has far exceeded any other EU economy, with two other former Communist Soviet satellite nations (Hungary and Romania) eclipsing German growth (chart, below).
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
Ireland and Poland show the rest of Europe how low-taxes and hard work can reap big rewards, while the other, more sclerotic, European giants (Germany, France, Italy and Spain) are chronically slow-growth economies, with massive unfunded welfare benefits, restrictive labor regulations and ultra-high tax rates.
It’s important to remember peace in Ireland and Poland must also be credited, starting with Poland’s spectacular growth spurt starting at the end of the Cold War in 1990, while Ireland’s key to future growth began with the end of a 30-year nightmare of “Irish Troubles,” ending with the “Good Friday Agreement” (the Belfast Agreement) in 1998. The end of these conflicts delivered a Peace Dividend to Ireland and Eastern Europe.
Something else, even more dramatic, happened in Ireland two-centuries ago, benefitting America greatly.
The British-Fueled Irish Famine Created Millions of Irish Americans
In re-reading Adam Smith’s massive “Wealth of Nations” this month – on the 250th anniversary of its publication – I noticed Smith taking a long, late “Digression concerning the corn trade and corn laws.”
Smith was referring to the Corn Law of 1773, but these Corn Laws were greatly enhanced and enforced from 1815 to 1846. (The term “corn” refers mostly to banned cereal grains, like wheat, oats and barley, not corn). These laws were mostly a way for Britain to “starve Ireland into submission” 200+ years ago.
High British tariffs on grains kept those grain prices too high for impoverished Irish farmers. In addition, Britain also required massive amounts of wool to feed its textile mills, so the Irish were forced to graze sheep instead of grow grains and came to rely on potatoes for the bulk of their diet. During the potato famine of 1845 to 1852, perhaps a million Irish died and another million made their way in “coffin ships” (similar to slave-ships) to the U.S., even though the Corn Laws were eventually repealed in 1846.
H.W. Brands wrote, in “American Colossus” (2010), chapter 9: “Of those Irish who didn’t die, some million and a half made their way to America [where] Irish laborers built the Union Pacific and other railroads; Irish miners dug coal from the hills of Pennsylvania,” but most remained in Eastern cities: “On the eve of the Civil War more than 80-percent of unskilled labor was Irish. Their employers appreciated their willingness to work for low wages – even as many of those employers despised the Irish as barely human.” Brands added: “The Irish were loved even less by the workers they displaced, in particular African Americans.” Frederick Douglas said, “Every hour sees us elbowed out of some employment to make room for some newly arrived emigrant from the emerald isle, whose hunger and color entitle him.”
Unable to buy their way out of the Civil War draft (for $300), roughly 200,000-Irishmen served in the Union Army, about 20% of them killed in action. Then, they went back to their “dirty work” jobs. By 1870, says Brands, “the Irish composed more than a fifth of the populations of New York and Boston,” enough to “swing elections in New York City, and State, in Boston and Massachusetts and, in tight races, in the nation as a whole.” In fact, some notable heirs of Irish immigrants became our presidents: John F. Kennedy was a great-grandson of potato famine refugees, and Ronald Reagan was son of an Irish father.
Automobile magnate Henry Ford was the son of a Cork immigrant; dramatist Eugene O’Neill was son of a Kilkenny immigrant; and dancer Gene Kelly was grandson of a refugee sailing out of Derry, Ireland.
This is another example of how immigrants helped built this nation, often after being forced out of their land of origin. To this day, millions of refugees are still trying to enter the U.S. to work low-wage jobs.
Let me close with a toast to the Irish – to those now living in America and those in the Emerald Isle.
The real Saint Patrick was born around 389 CE, with March 17 being his presumed death date in 461, not his birthdate. Some other famous Patricks born March 17 (or 16) include two “Model Major Generals”:
- Patrick Connor, Union Major General, born in County Kerry, Ireland on March 17, 1820.
- Patrick Cleburne, Confederate Major General, born in County Cork, Ireland, March 16, 1828.
- Patrick Duffy, actor in the “Dallas” TV series, was born March 17, 1949.
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Irish American U.S. Senator, was born March 16, 1927, and
- An Irish Lass, the First Lady Pat (Ryan) Nixon, was born March 16, 1912.
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
All content above represents the opinion of Gary Alexander of Navellier & Associates, Inc.
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A New Golden Buying Opportunity?
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Ireland is Europe’s Strongest Economy – Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
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The Longer the War, the Worse the Economic Impact
Sector Spotlight by Jason Bodner
Where There’s Market Smoke, There’s Fire – But Where’s the Fire?
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About The Author
Gary Alexander
SENIOR EDITOR
Gary Alexander has been Senior Writer at Navellier since 2009. He edits Navellier’s weekly Marketmail and writes a weekly Growth Mail column, in which he uses market history to support the case for growth stocks. For the previous 20-years before joining Navellier, he was Senior Executive Editor at InvestorPlace Media (formerly Phillips Publishing), where he worked with several leading investment analysts, including Louis Navellier (since 1997), helping launch Louis Navellier’s Blue Chip Growth and Global Growth newsletters.
Prior to that, Gary edited Wealth Magazine and Gold Newsletter and wrote various investment research reports for Jefferson Financial in New Orleans in the 1980s. He began his financial newsletter career with KCI Communications in 1980, where he served as consulting editor for Personal Finance newsletter while serving as general manager of KCI’s Alexandria House book division. Before that, he covered the economics beat for news magazines. All content of “Growth Mail” represents the opinion of Gary Alexander
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