Look at the great catch up of Ireland since the terribleĀ famineĀ in 1849. That year the lifespan in Ireland, 20 years, was estimated to half of that in UK! And theĀ estimatedĀ income per person in Ireland was only 1/3 of that in UK.
But Ireland hasĀ cachedĀ up and overtaken the former colonial ruler in both income and health. Note in Gapminder World that Ireland in spite of the economic downturn still has a higherĀ averageĀ income per person than UK www.bit.ly/imxm1V . The latest data from IMF displayed in Google public data explorerĀ confirmsĀ thatĀ IrelandĀ still remains ahead of UK in GDP per capita whenĀ comaprisionĀ is made in purchasing power parity.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=k3s92bru78li6_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=ppppc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:IE:GB&tstart=315532800000&tunit=Y&tlen=36&hl=en&dl=en&uniSize=0.035&iconSize=0.5
Hans Rosling