Page 4 | Differences (rep Ireland) Irish V UK

Sillysandy · 2025-09-11T13:16:27+00:00

I am Irish living in Ireland. My DH is British, he is an immigrant who grew up in London but had lived for 20 years in Ireland when I met him. I discovered mumsnet about 8 years ago when I took on a sort of stepmum role and was flabbergasted at some of the stories, attitudes and opinions. I still found the site extremely helpful, often giving me clarity on situations which would cause me a lot of angst. However when I talk to friends and family members living in the UK I realise that a lot is to do with cultural differences. It's amazing given how close geographically we are. Attitudes to money, marriage, divorce, wedding gifts, abortion, house purchases, communication with friends are so far from anything I've seen in my circles. To give my pov; (these are all generalisations) we get married later, we stay married, we don't consider abortion unless it's very particular circumstances, we are indirect about money "I'll get this one, you can get the next one (but it is LAW you only accept if you are buying back)" and sending bank details for a small amount would be horrifyingly rude, you only attend a wedding with a card containing at least 100 euro pp, you usually get married in your mid thirties, your kids are mainly all with the one father, we hide behind humour until we know a person very well, we don't report benefit fraud, we laugh a lot more... That's just off the top of my head. The other thing is that most Irish people know all about English Irish historical tensions but many English people are utterly oblivious. YABU You're talking out of your ass YANBU The differences are enormous I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. In my line of work now I do a weekly call with my UK based team and I always notice subtle differences in attitude.

KoalaKoKo · 19/09/2025 10:29

Slimtoddy · 19/09/2025 09:33

Am Irish. The thing I notice most is the indirect way of communicating. In my family I was the direct one but in UK I am constantly asked to - say what you mean. I am apparently indirect. If they met my family their heads would explode!

The thing I miss most is the banter and the humour. Although I have cultivated friendships with English people who are good at banter and storytelling but inevitably they tell me of some Irish connection.

Don't know if it's just my family but I find there is a strong desire to talk politics in Ireland.

Same! I love going home as I find you can suddenly start chatting to a stranger like you’ve known them for years! There are some parents of my daughter’s friends that I have barely said hello to in over 18 months as I try to introduce myself and they look at me like I am being weird by talking to them (obvs not everyone).

My partner’s family (English) has banned all talk of politics. His dad’s partner is a bit right wing and anti immigrant so very politically different to us (though she seems to have mellowed a bit recently), we always spoke politely and rationally about it but would sometimes correct misinformation. They decided at some point that my partner speaks down to her and his dad when debating politics so it is now a banned topic! Current affairs and news stories are also off the table, it is pretty boring visiting as I never know what I am allowed to talk about.

My family are the polar opposite, if I message my mum about anything in the news at 8am she’ll already have read the newspapers. We all have big arguments about politics and it gets animated but no one actually gets offended. My older brother changes his politics as often as you’d change your jumper so he gets the most slagging! Board games similar - my brother’s ex (American) started to cry once as she said we were all being so mean to each other but it was all banter and everyone was laughing, completely baffled me!

Teaforthetotal · 19/09/2025 09:50

Dappy777 · 11/09/2025 16:10

I agree about our ignorance regarding Irish history. It has nothing to do with arrogance or contempt, however. The Irish are generally well-liked in the UK (it would be odd if they weren't, considering that most of us have Irish ancestors). And Irish writers are much admired. But the Irish forget that to the British Ireland and the Irish troubles don't loom very large. In some ways, Irish identity is rooted in opposition to Britain. To the British, however, the great 'events' of our history have little to do with Ireland. They are (working backwards) Dunkirk, the speeches of Churchill, Spitfires and the Battle of Britain, WW1 (the 1914 Christmas truce, the first day of the Somme), the Empire, the wars with Napoleon, Waterloo, the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War and execution of the king, the Elizabethan period (explorers like Drake and Raleigh, writers like Shakespeare and Ben Johnson, etc), the Tudors, the Wars of the Roses and Agincourt, the Norman Conquest/1066, the Anglo-Saxon period, the Vikings, etc, etc.

And those events are bound up with literature. So to us, WW1 means the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, the Victorian period means Tennyson, the Industrial Revolution and its horrors mean Dickens, the Regency period is Jane Austen, the 18th-century is Pope and Blake and Boswell and Johnson, the Civil Wars is Milton, the Elizabethan period is Shakespeare and John Donne, the Medieval period is Chaucer, and so on. Oh, and there's the Romantic poets (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, Shelley), and I guess the Tudors now means Hilary Mantel. You see, there is just so much of it to study – I mean for those who take an interest (many British people are just as ignorant about their own history as they are about Irish history).

I think another reason is that to the British the Irish fall into a special category of 'foreign but not quite foreign,' along with the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians.

You sound very insular.

Slimtoddy · 19/09/2025 09:33

Am Irish. The thing I notice most is the indirect way of communicating. In my family I was the direct one but in UK I am constantly asked to - say what you mean. I am apparently indirect. If they met my family their heads would explode!

The thing I miss most is the banter and the humour. Although I have cultivated friendships with English people who are good at banter and storytelling but inevitably they tell me of some Irish connection.

Don't know if it's just my family but I find there is a strong desire to talk politics in Ireland.

Scentofgeranium · 19/09/2025 09:28

Is Flor pronounced Flur then? As in Flurry Knox. Or as Flor?

I don’t know anyone called Leon though I do know a few Noels, but maybe I’m just in a different part of the country.

GentlemenPreferBuzzcuts · 19/09/2025 09:06

verybighouseinthecountry · 19/09/2025 09:00

Do the Uncle Noel's all have a daughter called Leon? Was at my nephew's wedding and one of his 'cousins' (about ten times removed) was a woman called Leon. I assumed I had misheard her and she said it's common in her neck of the Irish woods that Noel's name their daughter Leon.

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Not that I’ve heard of, but in my neck of the woods, men are called Florence, pronounced Flurrence, generally abbreviated to Flor.

verybighouseinthecountry · 19/09/2025 09:00

eggandonion · 19/09/2025 08:33

My ds is certain that he is the only person in Ireland without an uncle Noel.

Do the Uncle Noel's all have a daughter called Leon? Was at my nephew's wedding and one of his 'cousins' (about ten times removed) was a woman called Leon. I assumed I had misheard her and she said it's common in her neck of the Irish woods that Noel's name their daughter Leon.

bigwhitedog · 19/09/2025 08:47

eggandonion · 19/09/2025 08:33

My ds is certain that he is the only person in Ireland without an uncle Noel.

I don't have one but I do have two auntie Mary and two uncle Liam 😂

Shayisgreat · 19/09/2025 08:39

My siblings and I are the only ones in our wider family who haven't used "family names" for our children.

Shame because Michael, William/Liam, Colm, and David are all lovely names! Brendan not as much!

eggandonion · 19/09/2025 08:33

My ds is certain that he is the only person in Ireland without an uncle Noel.

Shayisgreat · 19/09/2025 08:31

verybighouseinthecountry · 18/09/2025 22:24

My sister is married to (well they are getting divorced) an Irish man from somewhere south in Ireland, he lived in Dublin and then moved to NI, where my sister was working and after marriage they moved back to our home city. I follow a number of people in his family on Facebook and they have strong tendencies that may only be in his family, but I don't see this much in UK:

they have so many women called Annmarie
baby names are often repeated in the family, after a relative
weddings are very overdressed, big up do's. Same for Holy Communion and christenings. Every single woman at these events is sure they are the best dressed
use of certain phrases 'some woman for one woman/I swear on my kids lives/that's a mortal sin
martyrdom complex "I never spend money on myself, it all goes on the children" said by women who regularly get hair/nails/tan done.
very friendly and familiar from day one.

BIL is now in his early 60s and from quite a working class background, so things might be completely different in uounger/MC circles

I recognise so many of these!

verybighouseinthecountry · 19/09/2025 06:22

eggandonion · 18/09/2025 22:43

I'm going for coffee with Anne Marie's mammy tomorrow.

To the cafe beside the agricultural co op.

God forgive you, spending money on yourself when there's children at home. That's a mortal sin, I'm telling you.

Olderbutt · 18/09/2025 23:16

bigwhitedog · 11/09/2025 20:13

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.

Tbh I think what you read is far from the 'norm'. Most British people would be astonished if a 16 year old Grandchild wasn't present at a funeral.

PaxAeterna · 18/09/2025 22:58

GentlemenPreferBuzzcuts · 18/09/2025 10:12

Yes! I was completely baffled by DS’s C of E village school’s censorious attitude to Halloween! The vicar came in one year and talked about how unchristian it was. It was never seen as in any way problematic in my devoutly Catholic childhood, or incompatible with Catholic doctrine. We used to dress up (well, masks and bin bags) and do apple-bobbing at school, and we used to go trick or treating (though didn’t call it that then) to the parish priest’s house!

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i hate to laugh at this. I never noticed when I was living in the uk (pre children) but I have an African neighbour who I have become friendly with and she was completely horrified that I was squirting fake blood on my 5 year old for her zombie cheer leader costume for school for their halloween celebration. I never realised that there was any controversy about this.

Having grown up in a deeply catholic family I was very insistent being Christian and dressing up as a serial killer and knocking on strangers doors for sweets are not incompatible. She reluctantly let her kids join in but remains unconvinced about some devil association and Halloween.

eggandonion · 18/09/2025 22:43

I'm going for coffee with Anne Marie's mammy tomorrow.

To the cafe beside the agricultural co op.

verybighouseinthecountry · 18/09/2025 22:24

My sister is married to (well they are getting divorced) an Irish man from somewhere south in Ireland, he lived in Dublin and then moved to NI, where my sister was working and after marriage they moved back to our home city. I follow a number of people in his family on Facebook and they have strong tendencies that may only be in his family, but I don't see this much in UK:

they have so many women called Annmarie
baby names are often repeated in the family, after a relative
weddings are very overdressed, big up do's. Same for Holy Communion and christenings. Every single woman at these events is sure they are the best dressed
use of certain phrases 'some woman for one woman/I swear on my kids lives/that's a mortal sin
martyrdom complex "I never spend money on myself, it all goes on the children" said by women who regularly get hair/nails/tan done.
very friendly and familiar from day one.

BIL is now in his early 60s and from quite a working class background, so things might be completely different in uounger/MC circles

KoalaKoKo · 18/09/2025 20:50

I made the mistake of telling an aunt once that most of the old crystal my mum inherited was broken by us, as was most she was gifted over the years (aunt went mad). My mum has the attitude that there’s no point in having nice things if you don’t use them so let us use them as kids, she has very few left lol.

BallybunionTao · 18/09/2025 18:20

eggandonion · 18/09/2025 12:05

Waterford crystal used to be a favourite wedding present. Dhs aunt was really proud of her cabinet which lit up to show it off. With stickers still on it as it was never used.

You've just made me realise why I dislike those nasty 'crystal'-effect goblets they have for drinking water at the round tables in the UK and Irish Traitors (presumably for continuity reasons, as you can't see the water level inside them) -- they remind me of Waterford crystal, of which I'm not a fan.

Original poster

Sillysandy · 18/09/2025 17:18

eggandonion · 18/09/2025 12:05

Waterford crystal used to be a favourite wedding present. Dhs aunt was really proud of her cabinet which lit up to show it off. With stickers still on it as it was never used.

Yeah I think this was the vibe with our crystal in its previous home. DH couldn't understand why I wasn't delighted at the prospect of displaying the stupid crystal. I was horrified. Utterly cringe. And we have no space for the things we actually need and like.

We finally compromised that it could stay in our home on condition that it was used in everyday life and might sometimes get broken (he still doesn't believe that a particularly disgusting display item was accidentally knocked over when I was vacuuming.

OP posts:

eggandonion · 18/09/2025 12:05

Waterford crystal used to be a favourite wedding present. Dhs aunt was really proud of her cabinet which lit up to show it off. With stickers still on it as it was never used.

GentlemenPreferBuzzcuts · 18/09/2025 10:16

TheLongRider · 17/09/2025 19:02

The salute is definitely a rural road thing. You greet everyone in case you cause offense by ignoring a neighbour. There are different versions, one finger, two fingers, a whole wave, the culchie head nod. The last one is hard to describe unless you've seen it in action, kind of a twist down to one side.

Yes, I had to train my city-reared husband when we lived in the country for a while. Now he’s a natural.

GentlemenPreferBuzzcuts · 18/09/2025 10:12

turkeyboots · 18/09/2025 10:06

And there is no religious panic over Halloween. It was banned in my DC CofE school. "American" Halloween gets a few mutterings, but pumpkin are so much easier to carve.

Yes! I was completely baffled by DS’s C of E village school’s censorious attitude to Halloween! The vicar came in one year and talked about how unchristian it was. It was never seen as in any way problematic in my devoutly Catholic childhood, or incompatible with Catholic doctrine. We used to dress up (well, masks and bin bags) and do apple-bobbing at school, and we used to go trick or treating (though didn’t call it that then) to the parish priest’s house!

turkeyboots · 18/09/2025 10:06

And there is no religious panic over Halloween. It was banned in my DC CofE school. "American" Halloween gets a few mutterings, but pumpkin are so much easier to carve.

Suednymph · 18/09/2025 10:02

18 pages in and nobody has mentioned that Christmas starts in Ireland the night the late late toy show airs!

GentlemenPreferBuzzcuts · 18/09/2025 09:58

Lottapianos · 18/09/2025 09:37

'Another current difference - The Ploughing being celebrated across the land by media outlets as if it's Glastonbury'

Sorry for being thick, but does that mean the start of the ploughing season on farms? Being reported on national media?!

I'm Irish but haven't lived there for 25 years so clearly well out of the loop 😁

No, just a big agricultural show that’s attended by a few hundred thousand annually. There’s a ploughing contest, tractor and horse-drawn, at the heart of it, but also thousands of exhibition stands for farm
machinery, livestock etc, plus live entertainment, craft and cookery demos, other competitions etc. It’s huge. (A tradition that whoever’s Taoiseach will go along and be photographed in wellies trying to plough— the extremely urban Leo Varadkar and his clean wellies was particularly funny back in the day. Good place to get a sense of what’s going on in rural Ireland.)

Member984815 · 18/09/2025 09:46

Sillysandy · 18/09/2025 08:48

Ah that's nice. What are the presents?

My DH was married to a different Irish woman before me, I think 25 years ago. They got a lot of very nice crystal glasses. I know as I'm often drinking out of his half of them.

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I got a lamp from a cousin , glasses from my husbands elderly aunt and a gorgeous clock from a much loved neighbour that has always been on my sitting room mantel . The cutlery I use daily from friends and a vase from another cousin . My favourite thing though is reading the lovely messages from family and friends especially now a lot of them have passed . The wedding album is tucked away . It's a great reminder of a great day 💓