Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

How does the Irish middle class compare to ours

566 replies

Norfolker · 04/01/2021 13:13

My sister in law is from the Republic & she says the class system in Ireland is there but less obvious than ours.. Not as many private schools but more subtle markers.
She also thinks their state education system is far superior so private schooling is unnecessary. Any Irish on here want to elaborate? I found it interesting.
YABU there is no difference between UK & ROI. Exact same class system no difference in markets.
YANBU different traits contribute to the Irish middle class system

OP posts:
atswim2birds · 07/01/2021 17:24

Have you seen the conditions in direct provision? The nuns didn’t land in Ireland from the moon - they were Irish as were their staff and most of the poor women and children were forced to attend their institutions. We are no better now.

Excuse me, but we are a hell of a lot better now. Don't believe everything you read in the papers about direct provision, most of it is pure waffle. If you knew the half of it you wouldn't make such comments.

Hatstrategicallydipped · 07/01/2021 17:25

@NothingICanDo

Perhaps one day Hatstrategicallydipped you'll make it to the gealtacht Grin could be a new goal for the future! (It was actually horrible for the most part!🤣)
My day has gone. I missed out on my first kiss in the Gaeltacht. Sad
Danu2021 · 07/01/2021 17:25

It's their shadow side @topsyturvvy Grin People in Ireland are terrified that others will think they're uppity, privileged, financially fortunate, ''posh'' so they demonise that ''trait'' before it can be attributed even in any small part to them as well!

Danu2021 · 07/01/2021 17:26

At least you got a B not glandular fever!

Hatstrategicallydipped · 07/01/2021 17:28

@Danu2021

It's their shadow side *@topsyturvvy* Grin People in Ireland are terrified that others will think they're uppity, privileged, financially fortunate, ''posh'' so they demonise that ''trait'' before it can be attributed even in any small part to them as well!
I think the English do 'posh' in a different way to the Irish. If you can manage to get through a sentence without throwing a few fucks in, you're relatively posh Irish in my eyes.
NothingICanDo · 07/01/2021 17:29

Also..in I think it was 2009 or 10...I was involved in a country wide sporting event (Community games) where I had to stay overnight in Mosney(a direct provision centre now) kids and adults from all over Ireland attended the weekend..we were kept well away from all of the families living there and were told our accommodation was a little more modern then their. It wasn't. It was the same dilapidated chalets from the 80s with huge gaps under the doors and around the windows. I almost cried getting into the bed. Somthing crawled across me. I got up and I swear to you...I stood outside the door and walked up and down the row of shacks til 6am. The place was walking with all sortsSad

While we were there the normal facilities of shops and canteen etc where restricted to the poor souls living there to make way for all the sporting Irish children. It was horrendous. We could see children in the distance with their families behind a fence..looking at all of our children compete and play. It was truly disturbing.

I wish I'd have tried to do somthing or help. At the time I was quite young and was one of my first 'real jobs'Blush

topsyturvvy · 07/01/2021 17:31

Yes that makes sense @Danu2021 and I've slowly learnt that myself over the years. It's amazing that we are so close in proximity but act usual I so culturally different, I find it fascinating.... and as for all those extra portions of food! The Irish family think I'm so mean not cooking twice too much food Grin

Hatstrategicallydipped · 07/01/2021 17:32

@atswim2birds

Have you seen the conditions in direct provision? The nuns didn’t land in Ireland from the moon - they were Irish as were their staff and most of the poor women and children were forced to attend their institutions. We are no better now.

Excuse me, but we are a hell of a lot better now. Don't believe everything you read in the papers about direct provision, most of it is pure waffle. If you knew the half of it you wouldn't make such comments.

I don't actually know what the conditions are, but one thing I do know is that we can always do better. Due to our location geographically, we only take in a few refugees relatively speaking. I think we could improve. I've seen some articles recently about them being welcomed, but I suspect they are just the good news stories, probably not the norm. There is always room for improvement.
topsyturvvy · 07/01/2021 17:33

And I still learn new phrases every day even after 20 years of being married to an Irish man! He'll come out with a saying I've never heard of... Smile

SionnachRua · 07/01/2021 17:33

@HeyGirlHeyBoy

That was fantastic you were offered that. I went to Coláiste Pheig Sayers and later Coláiste na bhFiann, an-strict! Wink
Oh wow you've just brought back Colaiste na bhFiann memories for me! Definitely a few mild RA heads running my course at the time Grin Did you also have to go on on parade and salute the flag twice a day?
Hatstrategicallydipped · 07/01/2021 17:35

@NothingICanDo

Also..in I think it was 2009 or 10...I was involved in a country wide sporting event (Community games) where I had to stay overnight in Mosney(a direct provision centre now) kids and adults from all over Ireland attended the weekend..we were kept well away from all of the families living there and were told our accommodation was a little more modern then their. It wasn't. It was the same dilapidated chalets from the 80s with huge gaps under the doors and around the windows. I almost cried getting into the bed. Somthing crawled across me. I got up and I swear to you...I stood outside the door and walked up and down the row of shacks til 6am. The place was walking with all sortsSad

While we were there the normal facilities of shops and canteen etc where restricted to the poor souls living there to make way for all the sporting Irish children. It was horrendous. We could see children in the distance with their families behind a fence..looking at all of our children compete and play. It was truly disturbing.

I wish I'd have tried to do somthing or help. At the time I was quite young and was one of my first 'real jobs'Blush

That's so sad. I really wish that we would pull up our socks a bit. Mosney (a day trip) was the sum total of our holidays in the 80's. Loved it. Those poor people. I wish we could have world-leading provision for them. Not set the bar low.
Cacacoisfarraige · 07/01/2021 17:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hatstrategicallydipped · 07/01/2021 17:40

If any nation should know what it's like to have to flee, Ireland should. There is not one Irish family who doesn't have a history of emigration. We really should and could be world leading in our provision for asylum seekers. Then again, we're not doing great with our own homeless either. That's usually the argument against taking asylum seekers.

NothingICanDo · 07/01/2021 17:43

Hatstrategicallydipped ah yes the coveted annual day trip to Mosney.

I really couldn't understand how in 2010 people were living like that in our country. How they were ALLOWED to live like that. I hadn't imagined it could that bad until I stayed there.

The most traumatic part was looking at the children watching from a distance. Some trying to wave at us and youth leaders/coaches telling our children not to wave back and 'encourage them' Sad ...I waved😔

I could cry thinking back.

Hatstrategicallydipped · 07/01/2021 17:44

@NothingICanDo

Hatstrategicallydipped ah yes the coveted annual day trip to Mosney.

I really couldn't understand how in 2010 people were living like that in our country. How they were ALLOWED to live like that. I hadn't imagined it could that bad until I stayed there.

The most traumatic part was looking at the children watching from a distance. Some trying to wave at us and youth leaders/coaches telling our children not to wave back and 'encourage them' Sad ...I waved😔

I could cry thinking back.

You've just made me cry!!! How fucking awful. Jesus, you'd think we'd learn. FFS.
NothingICanDo · 07/01/2021 17:46

It was 2008 sorry. Not 2010. I'm older than I thought BlushGrin

NothingICanDo · 07/01/2021 17:47

You've just made me cry!!! How fucking awful. Jesus, you'd think we'd learn FFS

Sorry . Welling up myself now,if I'm honest.

Eggcorns · 07/01/2021 17:47

@topsyturvvy

I find this thread so interesting as my husband of 20 years is From Dublin. He couldn't get over the fuss about schools over here to start with. What I have noticed though which gets on my wick is how many of the Irish friends and family always insinuate how "posh" people are in England, ALWAYS making references and jokes to it. The inverse snobbery is so ironic, imagine if people spoke like that the other way round, looking down their noses at people for having humble lives.... (and they're all well educated professionals themselves)
I think some Irish people do experience 'English people' as 'posh', though -- it need not necessarily be some kind of conscious reverse snobbery or a deliberate attempt to be snide. Of course it comes from misapprehension, inexperience and misreading class signals and accents, and an element of probably colonial hangover, just as some English people think that an Irish accent automatically signals 'heavy-drinking bogger with fifteen kids, pigs in the kitchen and the parish priest on speed-dial'. (Which is frankly a lot less pleasant to be around, and which I got from a minority of people throughout my years living in England, despite the fact that I'm a vocal atheist with one child and a PhD.)

My mother who only started to visit England when DH and I started to live there, and whose previous experience of English people was a couple of visits from distant cousins and one visit to another tyrannical elderly cousin Basingstoke definitely thinks English people are 'posh'. This is based entirely erroneously on the fact that the male visiting cousin (an awful prick, and standard-issue aspirational lower-middle-class) wore driving gloves and obsessively polished his car, and his wife said 'Pardon' a lot, while the Basingstoke cousin humiliated my poor, timid, easily flustered mother for putting a milk carton on the table, rather than using a jug. The horror.

This constitutes the 'poshness' of an entire nation for my mother. Grin

Hatstrategicallydipped · 07/01/2021 17:48

I really wish Ireland could learn collectively from our own bloody history. Sometimes I'm embarrassed of what we do or don't do more specifically.

We could do a lot better.

I think our younger generation are a lot more forward thinking than my generation - under the thumb of the Church generation.

I would like to think that our future shows us to be a far stronger people than we have been historically. We had a lot to recover from, but the new generation don't have those shackles. I have great hope for our new generations.

NothingICanDo · 07/01/2021 17:53

just as some English people think that an Irish accent automatically signals 'heavy-drinking bogger with fifteen kids, pigs in the kitchen and the parish priest on speed-dial'
Sorry that made me laugh Grin
My lovely friend from London when we first met,told me how yes its mostly a joke but a number of English people do still believe we are as described above. The butt of the joke...dirty..toothless. Grin

I did meet a french man once who, upon his arrival in Dublin,was very surprised to see a fully functioning city. He imagined all of Ireland to be rolling green hills and stone walls with a little pub dotted every few miles or so. Grin

NothingICanDo · 07/01/2021 17:55

I really wish Ireland could learn collectively from our own bloody history. Sometimes I'm embarrassed of what we do or don't do more specifically

We could do a lot better

Agree 100% with this.

atswim2birds · 07/01/2021 17:57

I don't actually know what the conditions are, but one thing I do know is that we can always do better. Due to our location geographically, we only take in a few refugees relatively speaking. I think we could improve. I've seen some articles recently about them being welcomed, but I suspect they are just the good news stories, probably not the norm

Yes, people who know nothing about it at all do find it easy to complain...you can't state the conditions are awful and then admit you don't know what the conditions are!
Some very good people work very hard in that sector, for little pay and less respect. My sister is one of them, and says she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry about the way the sector is represented based on little to know knowledge of it.

Hatstrategicallydipped · 07/01/2021 17:57

Well, the Yanks were worse than the Brits in terms of the preparations that were made in honour of their arrival in our house. New wallpaper (hideous) etc. Outside of house painted. We were farmers so we got a deep freezer to house a lamb and half a cow that we'd go halves on with neighbours plus a pig. The Yanks would come for a month every few years and stayed in our house as we had the 'spare room'. They were hugely obese and absolutely loved Irish dinners. My father still laments the thousands spent on meat for them (had I mentioned that he's a miser?).

atswim2birds · 07/01/2021 17:57

Sometimes I'm embarrassed of what we do or don't do more specifically

How can you be embarrassed when you don't know what we do or don't do?

NothingICanDo · 07/01/2021 17:58

you can't state the conditions are awful and then admit you don't know what the conditions are!

They were absolutely deplorable in 2008. So hopefully we've come a long way since.

Swipe left for the next trending thread