In the past fifteen years, Ireland has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the EU to one of the richest in the world. Of all that factors- in this extraordinary transformation, none has been more prominent than the astonishing boom in construction. In The Builders, Frank McDonald and Kathy Sheridan tell the stories of these men and of the changes - physical and psychological - they have brought about. They go behind the industrys secretive facade, and examine how well the big developers are equipped to weather the recession. The story of Irelands- property developers has been the great untold story of the boom - until now