Irish economist looks for big British
break
 By Niamh
Hennessy
THE Irish economist who first predicted the Celtic Tiger era is set to
make his mark in Britain.
Broadcaster and columnist David McWilliams plans to make it big in Britain
by using the model he has sold to Irish audiences.
He has become somewhat of a celebrity in Ireland in recent years and is
credited with being the first economist to predict the 1990s boom in the
Irish economy.
As an economist he is most famous for his repeated predictions of an Irish
property slump every year between 1997 and 2002, at which point he stopped
publicly predicting an imminent collapse.
He is now hoping to bring his ideas to Britain, starting with plans to
work on Channel 4.
McWilliams is already a hit with Irish audiences with RTÉ figures
showing the first episode of his documentary, In Search of the Pope’s
Children, attracted 517,000 viewers on Monday last week — 37 per
cent of the audience share.
The documentary is a spin-off from his book The Pope’s Children
which was the best-selling Irish non-fiction book this year, spending
52 consecutive weeks in the top five of the bestsellers.
The book is a guide to modern Ireland and how things came to be what they
are. It will be published in Britain this year. To date it has sold close
to 100,000 copies.
And the 40-year-old has now revealed his plans to work on Channel 4 are
tied in with a deal to first write a book about global economics.
He said: “We’re trying to firm up an English book and a documentary
deal, a bit like what we did here for The Pope’s Children in Ireland.
“It’s along similar lines. The book and documentary feed off
each other,” he added.
McWilliams has also had a successful career as a broadcaster in Ireland.
In the mid-1990s he made regular appearances as an economist on CNN, CNBC
and the BBC. He presented a current affairs programme called Agenda and
has also presented coverage of the Irish General Election in 2002.
He is also a regular columnist in the Sunday Business Post newspaper.
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