Europe's most westerly capital city was established by invaders and was for most of its history the locus of colonial administration, the engine room of foreign power, and a major site of indigenous resistance. From The Act of Union through nineteenth-century decline and into the early years of Irish independence it was a city identified with poverty, dirt, and decaying splendor. The Celtic Tiger (as Ireland's recent economic boom been called) produced sweeping changes, including massive new building projects, and the surprising revelation that Dublin has become fashionable. Siobhan Kilfeather finds the legacy of the past undergoing a series of transformations in the vibrant atmosphere of contemporary Dublin.