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.

I find it amazing that people are trying to insult me by calling me naive, insular a culchie and puzzling on how many channels are available where I live. This shows how small minded and petty you really are. Is it really that hard to hold a debate without resorting to personal insults.

Styler I am still not clear what the term west Brit means, as for Anglo Irish I have only ever heard someone refer to THEMSELVES as Anglo Irish but they also referred to Britain as the mainland, lol.

Obviously when I started this thread I was aware that people in every country have opinions of others when it comes to social standing. However my op was based on what I see to be the ridged structure of class in England, one that is apparently passed down from generation to generation rather than like the economic one in Ireland where people can influence their own social standing. I know I for one would rather be judged on my own achievements rather than some long dead ancestor but hey if that's what works for others good luck to them.

Just to add try and make my point clearer, I thought I had said this earlier but it looks like I omitted to. Yes most countries have some type of social ranking system going on as I previously said I would refer to certain individuals as knackers and others as posh. In England not only do you have the upper/middle/working/lower and under classes you also have the informal terms of chavs, solane rangers etc.
Anyway suffice to say the formal class system is still alive and kicking for some narrow minded individuals and dead and buried for more progressive individuals

It makes me smile when I reread the posts calling me insular and similar comments, presumably if I knew my place and accepted my class I would be deemed worldly? That is really very funny.

Calling anyone a knacker is horrible imo.

And farmers in Ireland are not working class. Far from it.

Seriously skyler, some people deserve that name for example the drug Lords and their gangs but if you would rather refer to them by a politically correct term go for it

As for farmers in Ireland are you serious , if so you really have no idea. Do you know anything about the history and geography of the irish farming back ground or are you reaching your opinion based on what you know about UK farms?

OP you claim there is no class system in Ireland, but you can't go more than one or two posts, without using a class-based insult.

Would you like one of these op to help you extend the large excavation you are getting yourself into?

Lol just saw your comment skyler where you said that up until the free state was created MOST irish people considered themselves to be both English and irish [shocked] you really do not know very much on this topic so why pretend?

Skyler, I did not use the pejorative term 'West Brit' or suggest that Anglo-Irish identity was merely British, I said they were an imported landowning class, which is a fact of history. The extent to which they subsequently assimilated or didn't is another matter, and not something I mentioned.

I can't believe this thread has descended into culchie name calling.

No one deserves to be dehumanized.

OP - You've fallen for the system to the point that not only can't you see it, you're defending it. You are defending the dehumanization of others because they "deserve" it. Why do they deserve? Do you think everyone called that deserves it and if not how would you decide - because you've put them all in that box with that label that was designed to make them less than human even when the label doesn't fit. Stereotypes are designed to cause hate and division, not label as they are. Can you not see that thinking people deserve to be called names, deserve less than you, deserve to be treated less human than you are is part of the system, part of class as a system, that socially divides people to better exploit and prevent the coming together of different groups that could change things. You've fallen into the same system, the same trap, that is used to excuse everything up to and including death to those who are seen as less than. The less than used to be all the Irish, but look at any colonizing power and you'll see they always set up a system to have people perpetuate it themselves. Look around, the systems are there to prevent you seeing it and to push you to perpetuate the division as normal and right rather than work to make things better. Why do you need to label anyone as less than? Why is it "politically correct" (I don't see anyone changing their opinion to gain favour, and being anti-PC just sticks it the same people that are already routinely stomped on) to treat people as human? To not give labels to make them less so but accept the identities they give themselves?

This thread has done well to show the class system in Ireland. It may have different names and labels to the English or American or other systems in the world, but it's very obviously there and very obviously causing division and hate.

No OP - read my post. I said British and Irish.

I know quite a lot about the history and development of the Irish landowning class (which includes farmers!), as it happens. The Irish agricultural equivalent of working class is the farm labourer or landless labourer. It suits certain people in Ireland to pretend that farmers aren't part of the middle class - this perpetuates the noble, rural, frugal ideal - but it doesn't bear scrutiny.

You seem to know next to nothing about anything in Ireland outside of your own narrow experience.

Shrugged - fair enough, if you want to ignore the many many years of assimilation and focus on the Anglo-Irish 'foreignness'. I don't think that captures the complexity of the situation after the 17th century though.

Skyler, you seem determined to pick a fight on precisely zero grounds. I specifically said that those landowners (who would later become known as the Anglo-Irish) were foreign when they ORIGINALLY arrived on Irish soil/were granted lands. I am not discussing their degree of assimilation in subsequent centuries, because my original point was one about elements of difference between class in the UK and Ireland. But let's leave it there, for heaven's sake.

Not determined to pick a fight at all . I just think the reductionist way many people have about speaking about Ireland and Britain is at best unhelpful and potentially dangerous (you also said that Ireland was a colony until the 20th c ).

ripRC at 18.07 "you are showing your ignorance"
ripRC at 18.55 "I didn't call you ignorant, read the post"

sharpen up your debating skills love

Oh beer you are at it again, there is a difference between been ignorant and showing your ignorance. In general I would presume you are not ignorant on all topics but you and indeed skyler are very obviously ignorant on Irish history but continue to spout rubbish, this is showing your ignorance. I can and do debate without name calling you should try and show maturity and do the same, it's not as hard as you think.

Skyler, how do you imagine you know what experiences I have and haven't? It's mind boggling that you claim to know what my life to date consists of.

I find it very intriguing that you ladies are so defensive of this class system, your defence leads me to believe it suits you boh very much for people to know their place and to stay there, that's very very sad.

OP you seem to have no knowledge of how class in Ireland operates (going by your OP). Secondly, you also stated that you weren't familiar with the term West Brit. That led me to deduce that you might not be quite au fait with the class and cultural history of Ireland. Thirdly, you don't seem to understand the out-workings of the agrarian revolution at the turn of the 20th c, and its consequences for the balance and composition of social classes in Ireland.

I'm not sure how you leapt from me saying that calling anyone a knacker is horrible to stating that I want people to 'stay in their place', would you care to explain?

Oh - I hate being addressed as 'ladies'. Please stop

Lol lady do you really think irish people were not taught their own history? I have just realised why so much of your version of irish history is so different from the reality, you have been taught a foreigners opinion of what irish people endured. You comments on agriculture among other things are so inaccurate that it would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that so many millions of irish people suffered and died at the hands of their nearest neighbours.

Right - so the point of your OP was to have a dig at the English then?

There are other ways of learning about history besides being taught the state-sanctioned version.

Class is an issue everywhere, if less rigid in some parts of Ireland.

and could you quote anything at all I have said about Irish history that might demonstrate my ignorance of that? As you claimed?

and could you quote anything at all I have said about Irish history that might demonstrate my ignorance of that? As you claimed I was...er ..."spouting rubbish"?

and could you quote anything at all I have said about Irish history that might demonstrate my ignorance of that? I don't recall mentioning Irish history at all.

Right - so the point of your OP was to have a dig at the English then?

shit sorry there is something wrong with my laptop

LOL at you saying I have been taught 'a foreigner's view of Irish history'. I am Irish, was educated in Ireland, studied history at university, have a PhD in Irish history, and now I teach history at third level. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!

OP how can someone show their ignorance if they are not ignorant?