For the record, the man who first came up with the phrase 'the Celtic Tiger' was an economist called Kevin Gardiner, who referred to it in a report for Morgan Stanley in 1994. Nobody is entirely sure how McWilliams ended up getting credit for it, but belief in his invention of the phrase caught on and it became an article of faith with some people, in much the same way that many still cling to the belief that the Humphrey Bogart character in Casablanca Perhaps it was annoyance at having the phrase attributed to him by so many people which prompted McWilliams to go off and try and think up some catchy sayings of his own. Whatever the reason, both The Pope's Children, with all its descriptions of people who don't really exist, and In Search Of The Pope's Children, which proves by its excessive use of actors that the Pope's Children don't actually exist, have been a huge success.

The book and the TV show are based on a lie, however, on a thesis which proposes that you can take large numbers of people, strip them of all the individuality, uniqueness, inspiration and madness which go to make up their vastly different lives, and then categorise them in the most general manner purely for the purposes of legitimising catchy titles that you came up with earlier.

McWilliams's people are works of fiction masquerading as the real deal. As somebody who lives in Navan, is married to a Dub, writes a column in a newspaper and loves the way bacon and eggs mix together between two thick slices of bread, am I member of the Commentariat, a Dulchie, a Breakfast Roll Man, a Decklander or a Kells Angel? Or is there a hybird name for all those? A ComDeckAngelDulRollMan, perhaps?

The main problem with McWilliams's thesis is not the almost communist manner in which it roughly shoves people into categories, but its shocking lack of originality. You would hope that a book which sold tens of thousands, which launched its author as a long-term member of the Commentariat, and spawned a TV series watched by up to half-amillion people, would have some spark of innovation or newness about it. But in fact, The Pope's Children is similar in conception and execution to a book that was published in the US six years ago called Bobos in Paradise. Written by a man called David Brooks, who made his name from it, and is now a regular columnist with the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly and Newsweek, amongst other leading publications, it purports to do for the United States precisely what The Pope's Children aspired to in Ireland a few years later.

For example, Bobo was a name created from the first two letters of Bourgeois Bohemians, one of a series of categories of people invented by Brooks. A few years later, David McWilliams came up with HiCo, short for Hibernian Cosmopolitans.

Bobos and HiCos have very similar characteristics. They are rich, have rejected the religions they grew up with and have turned to more wishy-washy New Age stuff as a replacement. They are at the upper end of their respective nations' social scales, in terms of status and income.

Below them in the United States, according to David Brooks, is Patio Man, who shops at Home Depot. In Ireland, according to David McWilliams, we have DIY Declan who shops at Woodie's, where he loves to visit the patio section. Both Patio Man and DIY Declan are acquisitive beasts. In Brooks's book, Patio Man has a hankering for the perfect barbecue grill. In The Pope's Children, DIY Declan has a hankering for perfect barbecue grill.

In suburbs across the US, Brooks says, there are so many delivered copies of the New York Times lying on lawns that they are visible from outer space.

McWilliams says that the Great Wall of China and Christmas decorations in the gardens of Celbridge are the only things on earth that can be seen from outer space. Brooks describes those huge US magazines with tons of lifestyle ads as the new pornography. McWilliams calls the Irish Times property section "property porn".

Brooks delves into the wedding announcements in the New York Times.McWilliams delves into the wedding announcements in The Irish Times. They both refer to them as the mergers and acquisitions page. Brooks writes about a "Duke MBA who works at Nations Bank [who] marries a Michigan law grad who works at Winston and Strawn [another bank]". McWilliams refers to AIB marrying Anglo Irish Bank. In both books, the upper classes . . . the Bobos and the HiCos . . . look down on those beneath them. They both invent a means by which their respective societies measure all the economic possibilities open to them. Brooks writes of an Achieveatron; McWilliams calls it an Attainometer.

In 2000, David Brooks came up with a concept and an idea, and in 2005 in Ireland, David McWilliams spotted some Irish parallels. (In a diary entry on his website in 2003, McWilliams wrote about his fascination with Brooks' book). In an almost demented manner he then went on to invent a whole other set of Irish caricatures.

Whatever you think of the glossy, plausible sheen of the television series, there is little original about it. The show and the book before it . . . entertaining codswallop though they may be . . .

feel like the Irish franchise of an American invention. It's McDonald's TV, Burger King publishing. I'd try for a better description, but all these funny names are getting tiresome.