Aibu to have thought that the class system ended when the servant system did?

[RipRC]

I am Irish living in Ireland but did live in UK for a number years. I honestly thought that the class system was dead and buried and yet I have seen it mentioned on here quiet frequently.
Does it still exist, if so can you give me an idea of what type of people belong in each class, how does your occupation influence your class and indeed your behaviour? Can people move up and down classes according to their own life style? And how much is this class system actually acknowledged today?
Personally speaking I am glad there is no class system here in Ireland.

Sub cultures aren't really a class system.

I don't hear anyone talk about being part of a class in real life. It's either here or the media talking about the middle classes.

If you got 100 people who were categorized as a certain I bet they'd easily start identifying themselves into smaller categories.

Madbanners

I'd say you were middle class, and your children are middle class, and your husband is working class.

According to something I found on google once it depends what job you have. something about being a general worker or having your name on or above the door. Of course there's also gentry and landed gentry, which is more about birth. And the underclass, which is unemployed benefit claimants.
Personally I think its all shit

I meant the class system is shit btw, not the definitions my mum found. They actually make sense.

As an outsider living in the UK, I can tell you that class permeates everything here. It's about the way you speak, the food you like, the media you consume, the clothes you wear, the home you live on, the job you do, and where you go on holiday. All those things, people immediately judge you on them and place you on the pecking order.

Regional accent? Read the Sun? Distrust vegetables? Holiday in Costa del Sol? Shop in Primark? Work in a low paid job? Like a tan and fun makeup? Working Class.

Speak with no accent? Read the Guardian or the Times? Shop at Waitrose? Seek out and enjoy organic vegetables? Enjoy walking as a pastime? Work in media or law? Middle Class.

I think it's such bullshit. People from one group only tend to mix with the same group and view the other with suspicion.

Beero'clock, I'm confused about cupboard or press?

I say cupboard but I assume everyone in the sticks does.
I don't have a hotpress any more, that was our only press!

Thanks foodie and perch, I beginning to think I was imagining it on here and missing it over here.
I think there is a minority of people living in Ireland who consider themselves to be upper class. No offence intended but they would be dependants of Lords when all of Ireland was ruled by the UK. As you may be aware of most of the landlords houses were burnt by irish "rebels" but a few were left standing, one of which is in my home town. The family living there are direct descendants of the land lord. The house gardens were opened to the public in the last decade and the family have said publicly how nice it is that the tenants can now access the gardens, lol tenants are the local people. These people would consider themselves to be upper class.

It's not any different in the US.

I think you have blinkers on RIPRC.

I was reading Ross O'Carroll-Kelly the other day and funny as always, Ross' Dad was going to CastleRock school to complain that it was opting out of the fee-paying system. "Ross got a terrible leaving, the only thing he has is that he went to CastleRock, and now you're opening the school to all!" He was furious.

They wouldn't consider themselves upper class. They are upper class!

I doubt very much that they would give you their thoughts about class. I'm sure they would keep very, very, very quiet on that score.

My granddad's uncle's farm house was razed to the ground. He fled with bullets sprayed at his back. There was a documentary about it. These people weren't to blame for the political system.

I know a Lord and his family's home is open to the public. As a matter of fact the local council served the family with a compulsory purchase order and bought acres for 60k, and then sold it on to developers during the celtic tiger.

Thanks for the replies, I have a slightly better understanding. I was starting to fear I had made a big faux pas and that mentioning class on a UK site was like jokingly prohibition on a usa site.

I have a mixture of cupboards and presses in this house, I also in to the shop for memessage's.

I get the Ross of Carroll thing but I don't think irish people in general consider this set of people to be upper class, I personally would consider them to be the crass rich.

When did the servant system end? It's the first I've heard of it

Perched, well, I don't want to RIPRC to come after me and raze my house to the ground and re-distribute my property to the locals, but Cupboard is what church of Ireland people say, and others they mix with catch it! so if people talk about kitchen presses then I won't socialise with them. Ha ha - JOKE!!

Actually, there is so much class division in Ireland, it's nearly more complicated than Britain! we have the travellers as well. They have their own language and culture which should be respected but is not.

I'm not CofI at all! I was brought up RC but would actually have a very mixed family background. Even the 'pigs are Protestant' where I'm from. ;)

That's really interesting. I didn't think of language at all.

Travellers are just travellers though. They are in the UK too and a breed of their own really. Not a class as such.

Beer does that make you upper class by inheritance rights? Regards it not been the landlords fault in Ireland well that's debatable, without getting all political I would consider that similar to saying apartheid in South Africa was nothing to do with white people.
It is a shame that those houses and their history became destroyed and also that it has been forgotten that there were many kind landlords who did much to help their tenants. There was a thread on here where people were complaining about national trust attractions and all I could think is how lucky your country is to have so many great homes preserved and no your door steps.

You've caught Protestant! take some time off work.

Ross O'Carroll Kelly is fritefly nouveau riche.

I think you are getting a bit political RIPRC. And inheritance of what? My stately home? You seem to have a bit of antipathy towards a section of society that is so tiny now, it's hardly worth mentioning. They are people living in large houses they can't really afford and they are using business brains to keep the show afloat.

I'm off now.

Ross O'Carroll Kelly is not nouveau riche - he is part of the long established SCD middle-class. The nouveau riche are Decksiders referred to in David McWilliams books. There's a substantial middle class in Ireland, and an upper class, to a lesser extent. To say there is no class system in Ireland is simply naive, it's just not talked about as much.

I don't work anymore since I had the DC's.

'Caught Protestant'makes me laugh though.
I'll blame my mother I think. Or DH, our surname would identify as CofI now that you mention it.
Actually I've been asked recently about DC's schools, given our address I thought it was obvious.
I just realised our surname would be odd.

I am Irish. There are certainly different classes in Ireland though they are maybe not as obvious on a day to day basis. You mentioned growing up in rural Ireland as did I. The thing most if the people in the area had very similar backgrounds we all went to the same schools, etc. It wasn't until I moved to Dublin and met people who'd been at Clongowes or Wesley and realised that these people came from a very different background to myself.

There is class in Ireland too, RipRC but it is more subtle than in the UK and people don't openly refer to it. Some of it is reverse snobbery too - a posh accent could actually hinder your career in Ireland, for example. Class / money awareness is there, though, if you meet certain people.

Where I grew up in the West of Ireland, we all just mucked in together whatever your parents did for a living and I had almost no class consciousness at all. When I went to university in Dublin, however, I met quite a few class conscious types there (D4 brigade ) but just thought they were deluded eejits mostly. There were also British people studying at my university who had a whole structure in their heads about public/private school, areas they lived etc that was relevant to them that meant nothing to me.

It did sometimes annoy me in the UK, when I lived there, how much people made assumptions about my 'class' based on their own cultural preconceptions, assuming I was from a privileged background. Northern English people seemed especially obsessed with telling me they had grown up in a council house or were working class, even if they had a PhD and/or a lot of money. They seemed embarrassed or preoccupied about class in some way. At the other end of the scale you had the fawning over the aristocracy/upper class which I found puzzling in this day and age (and I'm sure a lot of sane British people would agree with me there).

I was raised to view aristocrats as pathetic exploitative parasites, irrelevant to any developed culture. When I lived in the UK and heard people refer to 'Sir' this or 'the Honorable' that in some admiring way, I really had to bite my tongue so I didn't offend anyone and fulfill the stereotype of the chippy Irish trouble-maker.

Every country has different socio-economic classes but in the UK people refer more openly to it and talk pointedly about it in terms of working/middle/upper class maybe.

Sounds like those 'aristos' in your home town need their arses kicked, RipRC! We would not tolerate that where I'm from. Aristos are long gone and good riddance.

A scion of the 'landed gentry' that used to own parasitically nest on the land trawled by some years back looking for alleged ground rents 'owed' and was sent packing. Cheek of the bastard.

Beer, re the inherited that was meant to mean your class, and was meant as a joke.
Absolutely no antipathy at all obviously the comment by the local family wouldn't go down well with most irish but wouldn't take it to heart.
You must have missed the post where I said that I thought it was a shame that there houses and all their history were destroyed. I love visiting the estates and realise what hard work goes into preserving them and keeping them going, it's a shame that there is not more funding.

The big houses in Ireland are often owned by west brits (irish who wish they were british) and the left overs from back when they did own the country. Those who now think they're posh either try to have a british accent or claim they are protestant but I too lived in the UK for a long time and find the lack of class strata in Ireland a relief. We live in a rural area and my children mix (fairly) equally with multi millionaires and travellers, mostly friends are not chosen by how they dress, what they do or how they speak. There is a lack of rigidity that I hear from friends in the UK (south East so maybe not all the UK). They talk of private schools, in many incidences, extra ciricular activities that my children can only dream of but on balance, I think I prefer the lack of difference between people here. I'm sure both systems have their pluses and minuses