Any hopes that the "C**t*c T*g*r" would get back in its cage and be shipped off to rhetorical oblivion for 1998 proved about as short-lived as any over-optimistic resolution. There, approaching midnight on New Year's Eve and every other evening last week, was The Celtic Tiger, a multi-part documentary on BBC Radio 5 Live that set out to explain not only our economy, but every little thing about us to a British audience.
And while Bibi Baskin regularly leads amiable late-night chats for the station, and the Beeb has been prominently reported over the holidays as chasing Pat Kenny for his radio talents, the frontwoman for this showcase of our national success was no less than Our Marian.
For an Irish listener, hearing the livest of our live broadcasters doing little inserts in a programme that was obviously in the can long before Christmas was more than a bit strange. However, Irish listeners were hardly the priority: The Celtic Tiger covered areas and rehearsed arguments wearyingly familiar on this side of the Irish Sea.
If it wasn't quite up-to-date in terms of Irish news, the series seemed even less so in terms of ideological bias. There was no sign, in the episodes I heard, of the post-revisionism that is meant to have been heralded by the election of Mary McAleese. Thus, the introduction to part one featured the traditional list of what Ireland used to be, followed by the opposing adjectives that describe us now - and it sure sounded as if the opposite of "Catholic" is "confident". Episode two fleshed out that opposition, taking us again from the Late Late bishop and nightie fiasco (recounted by Gaybo himself) to the Eamon Casey and clerical sex abuse scandals that "rocked the Church".
Also familiar was the historical compression that allows the Whittaker-Lemass economic strategy of the 1960s to be credited with the boom of the 1990s - without also being blamed for the dire times that came between. The generation that emigrated or remains in long-term unemployment shoots down the Memory Hole.
However, the picture certainly wasn't all rosy. Fintan O'Toole (another BBC favourite) talked about those ignored by the Tiger, saying that only "if you're well educated, with the skills IBM and Intel are looking for, then you'll have a good life . . ." And a few minutes later, the qualities even of that "good life" were questioned by a couple who fled the rat race: commuting, endless overtime and stress - courtesy of computer-multinational employers - were leaving them with no life at all.
There are a few changes to digest in RTE Radio 1, including the continuing rise and rise of Carrie Crowley, but the most entertaining radio over the holidays was, arguably, the cascade of Colm Keane's pop biographies, some already heard, some new ones.
As usual, Keane dwelt more on the fall than the rise of his chosen pop stars. Heard together, the heading-downhill structure of these programmes can be rather disturbing. Is the relative penury suffered by the New Seekers - documented in I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (RTE Radio 1, Tuesday) - really the dramatic equivalent of Phil Lynott's "narcotics" (Keane's quaint term) addiction - as described by Thin Lizzy drummer Brian Downey in Dancin' in the Moonlight (RTE Radio 1, Friday)?
Moreover, Keane's concentration on chart positions and record sales leads him away from critical engagement with the acts. Only a certain tone to his voice would lead you to believe he views Lynott as more important artistically than the New Seekers.
Still, if Keane doesn't indulge his own feelings in the B. P. Fallon style, he provides more than enough material for fans to indulge theirs.
