Oh, how we laughed during the Celtic Tiger years. As we boarded the homeward flight with our bags of duty-free and real estate brochures, the cynics among us giggled at the 'home holiday', as they called it back then. The rain, the 'Irish salad' (a hard-boiled egg, a slice of Calvita cheese, a limp leaf of lettuce) and the pubs closing at 10pm of a Sunday night; when 'Music Lounge' meant misty-eyed ould fellas crying into their lukewarm pints, while singing some 'come-all-ye' extolling the virtue of misery and the Emerald Isle.