Yeah, personally I think this has a lot to do with post-colonialism.
I'm Irish, and there's a lot of this in our society. It was much more accepted in my parents generation, and appears to be reducing a little bit as we become a richer society.
I heard from an Irish colleague (I'm a Brazilian expat in Dublin) that this attitude, in particular towards taxes, changed after the independence from the UK.
So yes and no. My parents are pretty old (they had kids late) and they really don't like telling revenue (the taxman) anything, and would be inclined to overlook tax avoidance and whatnot. My wife's parents are of a similar age, and also similar on this.
Now, all of them were born a generation after independence, so it's definitely not just that.
However, when the government has historically not given a crap about you (as the British government did not), it leads to a disconnect from the society and institutions that increases the probability that you'll be OK with tax dodging and not have as much trust in the overall society (because historically, it didn't care about you).
So, I'd say that it's slowly changing because we're not a colony anymore, but it definitely didn't just disappear in a puff of smoke in 1921.
I'm sorry, what? Like I enjoy a bit of Irish-Catholic bashing as much as the next Irish person (probably more than most, given that I enjoy complaining about the Council of Nicea) but I don't really see how the pre-independence Catholic Church was unethical.
To be fair, though I'm not a fan of the authoritarianism, without the Catholic Church neither of my grand-parents or their parents would have had an education, and indeed the church was the centre of irish social life and community for a very long time.
Like, post-independence, the Church did a lot of dodgy things, but I really don't think you can blame the one organisation which actually provided some services for Irish catholics for our issues with authority.
And it's worth pointing out that much of the remaining corruption in Irish life is at the political level, rather than the bureaucratic level. As an example, you might bribe politicians to get planning permission for a large shopping centre, but you don't have to bribe the passport office for a renewal.
Can you give me some examples of Ireland being horrifically bent?
I'm Irish, and there's a lot of this in our society. It was much more accepted in my parents generation, and appears to be reducing a little bit as we become a richer society.