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By one estimate more than $450 million has been invested in Ireland by U.S. companies ranging from General Electric, which makes components for color-television sets, to Bally Manufacturing Corp., the Chicago slot-machine company, which exports one-armed bandits from Dublin to Sydney. "We couldn't do business in Australia without that Dublin plant," says Bill O'Donnell, Bally's president, "because Ireland qualifies for special treatment on tariffs there." Although Keating is concentrating his efforts on the U.S., he recently lured Beecham Group Ltd., the big British pharmaceutical firm, to invest in a 50-acre site near Shannon Airport. (Britain remains Ireland's main trading partner; more than 200 British plants prosper in Ireland.) The products shipped from foreign-owned Irish plants, ranging from cardiac pacemakers to computers, transformers to cranes, are testimony, Keating says, to the adaptability of Irish workers.
A New God. The unique demography of Ireland (almost half the population is under 25) ensures that even if a controversial bill on family planning is passed by the government, some 30,000 new jobs must be created each year. Thus there is little or no resentment against foreign investors, save for the lunatic fringe of the I.R.A. In fact, the Irish color the overseas invasion with a touch of wit. Asahi, the $1.8 billion Japanese chemical concern, planted a $100 million textile factory in the barren wilds of Mayo, a western county haunted by memories of famine and emigration. Its peasantry have always been so poor that after the mere mention of "Mayo" they intoned the prayer "God help us." Now that Asahi is there, a local poet, with an eye toward more potential investors, wants it changed to "Mitsubishi help us."