New data show that the Irish economy experienced a 7.5 percent decline (year-on-year) in the final quarter of 2008. As NRO’s Andrew Stuttaford reports in his piece on the broader economic crisis in Europe, “Gloomsters joke bleakly that the difference between Ireland and Iceland is six months and one consonant.” For more analysis of the Irish downturn, go here, here, here, here, and here.