This article will explore the liminal figure of the zombie as a playful but also a serious image or collective representation which captures the institutions, subjectivities and structures of the new, post-austerity context in Europe and Ireland. Since the economic crisis, there have been numerous references to ‘zombie banks’, ‘zombie politicians’, ‘zombie-neoliberalism’ in journalism and social theory. Zombies are a ‘floating signifier’ of our contemporary experience of liminality. The first section of the article shows how the image of the zombie in popular culture is useful in understanding the contemporary political imaginary. The second part of the article examines the zombie as a metaphor for the dead–alive status of late capitalism. The third section looks at the use of the zombie in postcolonial theory. And the last section examines the potential of the figure of the zombie in developing a critique of Irish society.