Paper short abstract:

During the Celtic Tiger period people reconfigured homes as assets, and 'dream homes' and investment properties soared in value. But in 2008 this dream was shattered. Today, spectres of cultural capitalism haunt the Irish landscape.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I use ethnography to understand the commodification of culture-bound dreams and the ramifications when those 'assets' lose their value. But this is not simply an essay on the free market. Drawing on Wacquant's 2011 idea that neoliberalism has evolved through, /state-crafting, /as opposed to how it portrays itself and is interpreted as, an economic system, my ethnographic research considers the emergence of Olcote Village, in West Dublin in 2004, as a by-product of a perfect storm of Irish people's home ownership obsession, the advent of the Celtic Tiger, an unregulated system of planning largely controlled through local government. Originally advertised as a fairy-tale, steeped in majestic history, Olcote Village is in reality a highly congested dense space of mixed housing units which sold as a life-style with the mystical promise of so much more. I ask: what are the socio-cultural consequences of the rise and fall of a powerful property market in which 'dream homes' were bought and what are the ramifications of shattered dreams for people's lifeworlds and for societal hope. In a country where home ownership was fundamentally important, people dreamed and were encouraged to dream about how they could achieve both use value and objectification of their dream commodity. Olcote Village remains an almost fully populated place whose dwellers remain affected by decisions they made or were indirectly linked to during this time frame.