Since then, Russia has annexed the Crimean peninsula and the east of the country has been convulsed by civil conflict, possibly spurred by Russian intelligence and logistical support, but now taking on a life of its own.
They have come to this muddy corner of County Wicklow to record their new album – spurred on by their obsessive, inscrutable, fibreglass-headed leader.
From the moment that he came into power in 1987, successive French governments had supported his regime, spurred on by his invoking Algeria and the threat of Islamist terrorism as a possibility in Tunisia.
Spurred on by these figures – as well as horrific cases of women failed by the system such as Maria Stubbings – police forces and prosecutors have worked hard in recent years to encourage victims to come forward and to change the way they are treated by authorities once they do so.
Spurred by a sense of injustice and disappointment, she has spent six years writing a hefty tome which she claims is the "true story" and is pursuing so far fruitless legal battles.
Hong Kong's government has unveiled its proposed reforms to how the city chooses its leader – a project that spurred pro-democracy "umbrella protests" when guidelines were announced last year.
That briefly spurred them on, Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez upping their tempo in a bid to undermine the German back line, though Löw's side were happy to let their opponents ping their passes at arm's length with little space behind for the tricky forwards to exploit.
Too late – by 2006 the digital music market, spurred into life by Fanning and Parker, was worth £560m but Napster had fewer than 1 million users left.
The Ebola crisis is expected to lop off as much as $6bn off the GDP output of the entire sub-Saharan region in 2015 The borderline hysterical media reaction to the Ebola epidemic – much of it spurred by the unlikely incursion of the virus into the US and UK – can be explained because it dovetails with this familiar narrative.
Boehner took it back to his colleagues in the House who, spurred on by the House majority leader Eric Cantor, blocked it.
The arrests spurred a number of lawsuits, including a case involving more than a dozen demonstrators who said police ordered them to leave but prevented them from doing so and arrested them in lower Manhattan early on New Year's Day 2012.
