The year is 2040. Ireland is part of the European Alliance, and overrun by the American military. Dublin is a ruin of a city. The Phoenix park is now Fort Phoenix. Gunships patrol the bay. The American president’s daughter, Princess, is studying at Trinity College, and so those ancient walls have been decorated with watchtowers and gun turrets. Students, at least those who the security services have decided do not pose a threat, pass through metal detectors to get to their lecture halls. An early scene shows a crowd of protesters gunned down at the signal of the Taoiseach. This is Ireland if every policy decision made from now to then is shortsighted and motivated by profit – private or otherwise. This is not a far-flung dystopia. It is a place just about recognisable from the angry mutterings of today’s Dubliners: a city gone to ruin.
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