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WORLD VIEW:'THERE ARE decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen." Lenin's remark from 1917 resonates powerfully at the end of 2008. Suddenly the world we became used to over the last 30 years has fundamentally changed. The rush of events recalls the pace of change in the late 1930s which led the famous BBC announcer to say: "This is Alvar Lidell with news of fresh disasters", writes Paul Gillespie

Relations between the global and the local, between market and state have shifted dramatically. Ireland, as one of the states most open to globalisation, has been hit directly. For those who remained oblivious of this fact, thinking the local might be insulated from these events, Trotsky's remark is apposite: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."