The Pope's Children, Ireland's New Elite

Hello boys. And girls. Meet the Pope's Children, the products of the Wonderbra effect in Irish life. Meet the new Irish generation, born either side of the Pope's visit, who have been squeezed into the middle and lifted up by the Celtic Tiger. Meet the huge new Irish middle class, young, sassy and making out like bandits.

David McWilliams' brilliant survey of Ireland today is a celebration of success. He takes us to Deckland, that suburban state of mind where you'll find the Kells Angels, those iut-of-town commuters who are the cutting edge of the new prosperity. He introduces the HiCos - Hiberno-Cosmopolitans - the elite whose distance from Deckland is measured in their cool sophistication, their ability to feel at home equally on the Boulevard Saint-Michel and on Hill 16.

The Pope's Children is an antidote to the endless pessimism of the Commentariat, official Ireland's gloomy opinion mongers, forever seeing a glass half empty that is in fact three-quarters full. There is a vast surge of ambition, new money, optimism and hope out there. That's the real story: The Pope's Children tells it - and tells it with style.

Meet the Pope's Children, folks.

Meet your new bosses.