Reframing Irish Youth in the Sixties focuses on the position of youth in the Republic of Ireland at a time when the meaning of youth was changing internationally. It argues that the reformulation of youth as a social category was a key element of social change. While emigration was the key youth issue of the 1950s, in this period young people became a pivotal point around which a new national project of economic growth hinged. Transnational ideas and international models increasingly framed Irish attitudes to young people’s education, welfare and employment. At the same time, Irish youths were participants in a transnational youth culture that appeared to challenge the status quo. This book examines the attitudes of those in government, the media, in civil society organisations and religious bodies to youth and young people, addressing new manifestations of youth culture and new developments in youth welfare work. In using youth as a lens, this book takes an innovative approach that enables a multi-faceted examination of the sixties, providing fresh perspectives on key social changes and cultural continuities.
