Differences (rep Ireland) Irish V UK

Agree!

I've never been to any English wedding where I could just hand over an empty card. Every wedding I've been to has been a list usually John Lewis or money (£50 minimum but that would be a friend).

My friends grandad died on Monday late evening, around 10 or 11 pm I think, funeral home Tuesday, burial Wednesday. They were the talk of the village for 'running away with him' and they never put a notice on RIP.IE . There's usually a clear working day between death and funeral, and the lack of notice, well as someone said upthread he may as well not have been dead at all.

One thing that jumped out to me when I moved back here after 3 decades in London was the proclivity for adult
relatives to stuff 10 or 20 euro notes into the kids’ hands every time we meet. Usually with a hushed “Buy yourself an ice cream with that! Sure you’d be lucky if it’s enough to get one”.

On a related note, kids’ birthday parties are sooooo much easier as everyone just sticks 20 euro notes into a card. No more rushing to try and buy a last minute gift.

Death is part of life here and so much healthier the way we get a chance to come together and remember the person.

People - strangers - speak to each other without being held back by a fear that they may accidentally end up making a friend that they don’t have time for.

Nothing comes close to Radio 4. Irish radio is pretty trite.

Tonnes more - it’s a different world entirely.

I wish my family got the note about monetary presents at weddings...we got 4 sets of wine glasses and we don't drink. Stingy gits. My English family that travelled over were more generous

Yes, we're Irish and live in Ireland.

The death thing is too extreme both ways I think. Somebody being buried 2/3 days after death can be too soon I think, but the month long delays in the UK are ridiculous

Ah no that’s not how I saw it at all. I got married during the recession and some people gave less or nothing and I would never mention it and would be just happier they were there, People who were self employed who would have been on their knees at the time.

I have a wealthy aunt who gifted my cousins a cheap fruit bowl and she’s still the talk of the family for it, but I assume this would go for every country. Like she is a multi millionaire and gave a euro shop bowl.

Absolutely there is snobbery and class differences. Having lived in both places it is just different though; not as obvious maybe. There was an awful lot of poverty in Ireland until the 1990’s and we’ve seen the “middle” grow much larger. So there are these families with generational money - but most people grew up in struggling families so I think you find less people with “notions” and generally “notions” do not serve you well.

Also less private schooling means more mixing. More people in the UK have lived in this bubble of privilege their entire lives. But we have those people here too, there are just less of them.

I disagree .. €100 per person was when I got married 18 years ago.. it’s more €150 a head now. A list will be kept and it will be noted who gave what!!

I think its fine if that is what the bereaved want. I used to often be peripherally involved with people who had lost a family member (NHS elderly care in a rural community) and remember the air of disapproval amongst the staff if the family chose not to have a "proper funeral" and the absolute shock horror when a widow who was in hospital for respite care when her husband died said that she would not be attending the funeral. The staff attitude was "oh she must"
I don't think that there is a better or best way of dealing with death or that one culture deal with it better than another. My mother had a wicker coffin and a pink cadillac hearse, a proper "life celebration" We did it for her because she had said it was what she wanted......different people different choices.

Yeah, it's so bizarre. The idea of reporting anything other than a dangerous crime is so alien. I see people talking about reporting each other on here and don't even who they'd be reporting to!

During COVID I lived on a council estate, a mix of houses and flats. While MN was obsessing about how long you could be out for a walk/ how many walks you could take and wether to report their neighbours, my neighbours were either sunning themselves outside and BBQ ing or heading off to work in shops/ restaurants/ hospitals.
While MN was home ordering everything to be delivered, my husband was in a hot restaurant kitchen squashed in with the staff churning out takeaways to drive all over town.
I couldn’t imagine anyone where I lived giving a shit about reporting a neighbour for taking 2 walks.
Mumsnet is a parallel universe, not necessarily representative of British culture.

Yeah, i find the culture of reporting on mumsnet/in the UK hysterical. So fucking weird.

Irish living in London 15 years. Yes, all you've mentioned is pretty accurate.

I enjoyed the Irish series The Great House Renovation (I hope that’s the right title) so much more than Grand Designs. We’re English, and we both tried to analyse why the Irish version was better.

I think it was because the people (the couples) were just so nice and down to earth. I stopped watching GD partly because the people were so up themselves, smug and pretentious. The presenter too was a delight and so avuncular and funny - unlike the stressy, hand-wringing Kevin McCloud!

And Ireland has some wonderful buildings for renovation too, of course.

Also the reporting of everything to everywhere is not really a done thing here, you tend to just mind your own business and turn a blind eye.

Irish in Ireland, also divorced as are a lot of my friends and we were all divorced in our late 30's/early 40's.

Weddings absolutely no discussion minimum of 100euro per guest and thats just how it goes. You do not question this you just do it.

Funerals well we bring our kids to wakes to see the dead person and funerals are as normal as a sunday dinner, we also use RIP.IE and if you are not named on there quite frankly you are not dead.

Again with money I have been to many a weekend with English pals and been asked to transfer 4stg for something then another 7 for something - here its like 'ah i will put it on the credit card, pay me the lump sum on the night' kinda thing instead.

The catholic church has all but lost its grip over here though so not sure about some of the comments about it.

Of course there are judgments but the ingrained class system isn't there.

Isn’t there at least a bit of classism, especially in Dublin with judgements about accents and whether you live on the north or south of the city? And a bit of snobbery referring to country people as culchies (I think that’s the word I’ve heard used anyway)?

I agree the British are much more aware of class but I don’t think the Irish are without a sense of difference amongst themselves either.

'Yes class - there's a great viral video of an Irish comedian saying that in Ireland there is people, then people with notions'

I really hate the whole concept of 'notions'. There's something similar in the UK where people might get accused of having 'ideas above their station' - well, who decides what someone else's 'station' is or should be?! It's snobbery, defensiveness and begrudgery all rolled into one. Really unpleasant

One of my best friends is from Dublin, lived in UK for last 30-odd years.

She married DH in her mid-twenties (as did I) and is still married (late & early 50s), each of us only has only one father for DC, not “mainly” only one.

She was always far wealthier than us, and generous to a fault but not in a grand or condescending way; “put your purse away, theses are on me, don’t argue”.

Would rarely put money in a wedding card, quite vulgar. If a couple asks for money, it’s given separately as a gift, but wedding lists are still preferred.

I’d report benefit fraud or tax evasion in a heartbeat, YABVU to infer there’s something wrong in that.

Watch traitors ireland v traitors UK

That all the differences in one show

I’m Irish and there’s two things on Mumsnet stand out as big differences between here and the UK. Firstly is funerals - I can’t imagine having to go back to work and real life before a loved one is buried. They take place about three days after the death and you don’t invite anyone, they just show up. Connection to the dead person can be slight, I’ve gone to many of people I don’t know. Not unusual for half your work colleagues to turn up. Which is great cos you get to talk to them then and not in the office.
The other thing is your rights if you’re not married - cohabiting non-married couples have far more rights in Ireland than in the UK.

I do think we’ve a lot in common too. I’m just back from a trip to Nottingham, a part of the UK I’d never been to before and the friendliness of the people there and the sense of humour reminded me of home.

Another thing I don't get about English funerals aside from the slower turnaround, which I don't know if it's better or worse, is all the handwringing I see on here about bringing children to them. Once there was a woman tying herself in knots on here wondering if she should bring her 16 year old to her father's (child's grandad) funeral. The teenager had no additional needs or vulnerabilities. That wouldn't even be a question amongst the vast majority of Irish people.

Fair enough, although I think the discussion about class is just a MN thing as it's not a discussion topic in the UK in real life.
The culture shock was mostly related to religion and I was in my early 20's and not very well travelled at the time. I'd never seen anyone with an Ash Wednesday mark on their forehead and there was no one to explain it to me so I thought people had coincidentally got dirt on their faces by accident. Another time I was sitting at the back of a bus when everyone simultaneously made the sign of a cross, and I didn't realise we'd passed a cemetery. So I often felt like I was in the Twilight Zone until someone could explain what was happening. I've since travelled a lot more and I still haven't experienced that level of confusion and the feeling of being the odd one out as I did in ROI. But it was a really good experience for me at that age.

I don’t know tons about Irish culture ( beyond a few novels and telly stuff) so can’t comment on that but I don’t recognise much of what is described about British culture either. Half of the things people say in MN are totally alien to me! (English)
People seem to get in a twist about all kinds of perceived infractions- they don’t answer the door, don’t talk to their neighbours or to their friends on the phone, go No Contact with difficult family members, are ready to report their neighbours to any authority for any suspected rule breaking and get the horrors if a house has only one bathroom…
None of these things exist in my world in real life but I guess they must in some British cultures.

The funeral thing- we are just a really highly populated country. We wanted to get the soonest slot we could for my mum’s cremation but it was still 12 days. The funeral was packed, we laid on a ton of food and people stayed drinking in the bar til the venue kicked us out, so definitely not a 20min job.
I have heard people refer to funerals as being invitation only on here, which I think is terribly wrong - a funeral is a public event and anyone who knew the deceased should feel welcome if they want to come.
Im Northern and not posh so maybe it’s true that things considered “ British” are really things that are confined to a certain type of person in the Home Counties!