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.

Napa I think I remember something similar happening in castlebar, some chancer embarrassed himself and was sent packing.
When I say there is no class system in Ireland in mean no formal system as there was/is in England.
Also is it the same in the rest of the UK or is this just an English thing?

Why introduce the religious element Beer? I knew a number of what a British person might call 'working class' Protestants when I lived in Dublin, just ordinary people same as their Catholic neighbors who happened to have a different religion. The occasional one might have notions about herself or get a scholarship to a posh CofI school but their religion wasn't relevant to their economic background. No need to bring that into it...

My Protestant neighbors at home were farming the same land as the Catholics minding their own business and actually WORKING for a living unlike these fabled upper class parasites who happened to share their religion and gave everyone else in the CofI a bad name

Duffel its pretty much the same for us, the kids have friends whos parents come from all walks of life no segregation, now this may be different in areas where private schools and more like minded people are available but here in the west there is less choice.;-)

I thought all irish people apart from the titled ones were working class; to be honest.

The class system is alive and kicking it's how they keep us pesky under class in our place.

Afraid I've never been to Ireland so don't know what it's like there.

It's interesting how so many have scoffed at the idea that there's no class system in Ireland but haven't given any insight as to what they consider that system to consist of.
To be honest I am none the wiser as to whether the class system still formally exists or whether it was done away with but still lives on in people's minds.

Grumpy this is how I see it to be in Ireland, most people do not consider others to be better or more than them regardless of wealth or occupation. There was a time when doctors, solicitors and priests were revered and local business owners were almost gentry. This has changed, we have lost the subservient attitude and we see ourselves as equals.

I think some would see the fact you see yourselves as equals shows the problem. If someone is profiting off you then you're lower than them.

Class is everywhere. And it's important we recognise it at a more international level. I have far more in common with working class in other countries than those only a bit higher up in this one. And I think that's partly why it's important

RipC, I think you are confused. What do you mean by your title? Who exactly would do away with a class system? What is the 'servant system'? And in your last post, what is the distinction you clearly see between an Irish class system 'formally' existing or 'existing in people's minds'? Where would it exist other than in people's minds?

Of course Ireland has a class system. It's certainly less of a national obsession than in England (can't speak for Scotland or Wales), and there are a few different factors. That Ireland was a British colony till the 20th c, the absence of a monarchy, the 'importation' of a foreign landowning class which still hangs in in tiny remnants. No industrial revolution outside the North, so the development of a middle class happened later than in the UK. Plus Ireland was a rural-based agricultural society till very recently, so the distinction between 'strong' and 'small' farmers was probably a more useful distinction than one of class.

Other than that, much the same as the UK without an aristocracy and rather less '

Pressed send too soon! Rather less old money was what I meant.

I don't see people being treated as equals at all. Granted, underclass scum like me try to argue that we're human beings too. However the working, middle and upper class all look down on those below them and those of us at the bottom aspire to become better/proper people.

Having said that I think social mobility is a lot less than it was in the past. It used to be much easier to better yourself. Now it's once scum always scum. I'd love to be middle class but it's never going to happen.

I think the idea that the class system dying out with servants is a bizarre one. Especially as the upper and middle class continue to employ others to undertake domestic and childcare for them.

"most people do not consider others to be better or more than them regardless of wealth or occupation."

OP "most" people may not consider people better than them based on occupation but they certainly see people as being worse than them - I grew up in a socially deprived area and was looked down on by many "middle class" people or whatever you want to call then - and still am sometimes when people find out where I'm from even though haven't lived there in 18 years! So trust me the class system is alive and well even if people don't explicitly refer to it as working/middle/upper class etc.

And YY to shrugged's points about 'formally existing' - what does that even mean?

YABU. Class has nothing to do with a shortage of labour.

Foreign landowning class? West Brits? How ignorant. And offensive.

skyler you're right it is patronising bollocks - once we threw off the yoke of British oppression we all became equal.

I detect a similar attitude here in Scotland, that there's no class system in Scotland (aye right) only the oppressive English.

I'm pro independence but I don't imagine post independence Scotland will be an egalitarian paradise.

Fully agree with PinkPepper. But it's part of the system, as Assata Shakur, the less we think about it, the more tolerant to it we become and the more normal and right it seems.

Yes, OP, you are being unreasonable. Particularly as some people still have servants - some people still have slaves. Illegally, yes, but trafficking and slavery are still with us. On top of that, there is different treatments and exploitation of different groups. While it is nice to be able to live a life and not have to deal with it, for others the system is a painfully obvious matter of everyday life.

*as Assata Shakur said. Most proofread better.

Duffel's post of 23.12 is quite ironic really

I used to work in a place where people thought it was OK to bring their children in and leave them with the 'admin staff' to be looked after. I'm quite posh but quite objected to that happening.

Yes I am confused, that's why I am asking I really know very little on this topic. Find it absolutely amazing on here when people talk about classes to me it's an archaic and unacceptable system. I mentioned the word formal because it does seem to me that this is a formal recognised system which has formally named categories. Here in Ireland we would have a multitude of names for people we deem to be better or worse than us, like nobs, wealthy, scangers, knackers but nothing formal. The media does not refer to middle, upper or lower classes, they would refer to high/middle/low income earners, unemployed, disadvantaged but never class. People can easily move from one category to another and most will fall into at least two in their life time. My husband was brought up in a rough council estate but he now works in a professional job and owns a lovely home his past has no bearing on how the majority of people perceive him, he would be admired for making more of his life and never be judged on his humble beginnings, where as I get the impression that if he lived in England he would still have the lower class title clinging to him.

I never heard the term west Brits before but the reality is that Ireland did have foreign landowners for a long time, what is ignorant about the poster who said this, they were stating a fact? I would consider it ignorant to try and deny that this happened.

Ok I have to ask! Some people mention that some people still have servants, wtf? There is a huge difference between someone been employed as a cook/cleaner/housekeeper than servants of times past who had little or no rights or choices.

There's a pretty obvious divide between the middle class and the working class in Ireland; the super-rich/remnants of landed gentry are so few as to have little effect. The dividing lines are less rigid than in England, I would think, and there's a good degree of social mobility because of the education system. However, we have pockets of quite extreme deprivation in some of the cities with no sign of improvement which is worrying.

Almapudden, I find your comment quite racist tbh as it hearkens back to stereotypes of the Irish as cap-doffing peasants. Maybe you didn't mean it that way?

If you were born into a working class family but are now a home-owning professional then you are now middle-class.

Always make me laugh the number of people on MN who claim to be working class when they clearly are not.

yes that was a bit almapudden