Tax, drugs and rock’n’roll

This is the story of how an influx of British pop stars in the early 1980s was a significant catalyst in the miraculous transformation of Ireland from poor, downtrodden and insular to rich, confident and outward looking. In the space of a decade or so, the country was turned upside down, seeing itself very differently and being seen in a new light by a bedazzled and somewhat bewildered watching world. Status Quo’s Francis Rossi set the ball rolling, closely followed by Sting and Andy Summers of The Police, but it was with the arrival of a cluster of younger freshly-minted MTV superstars that Ireland got itself a new English colony, and far from attracting hostility from the natives, these settlers were warmly embraced (well, mostly). The MTV stars hadn’t come for the atmosphere or the creature comforts. They’d come for the tax breaks, to endure a ho-hum year of exile beyond the grasp of the UK taxman.