How does the Irish middle class compare to ours

[Norfolker]

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

[quote Danu2021]@TeaEgg there is variance though. It's not one box ''Middle Class''.

I did have elocution lessons when I was young.

When I was in the UK, a friend of mine told me I had a strong Irish accent. I had to bite my tongue![/quote]
Come to think of it, my school enforced compulsory elocution lessons! But in a completely ordinary parish primary in the late 70s/early80s, in an area which was then overwhelmingly working-class, so certainly not any kind of middle-class frill in our case.

To be honest, I quickly learned to discount what a particular subset of English person said about accents, after I realised that quite a number genuinely believe they don't have an accent at all.

The lady in question has also given her kids Irish names spelt in a ridiculous way (not the normal way the names are usually spelled). I get the impression it was to look good on the schools application form. She said all the kids in dc's class have Irish names so I'm thinking it's a subtle MC marker?!

Can anyone say in what way the schools are better in ROI? Sounds interesting!

I can - whilst the classes are still 30 (mine are in a national school), there is a teacher and an assistant in every class, the classrooms are purpose built (so that's a lovely big warm room, with plenty of light and high ceilings for each class, with toilet per class). The school (which admittedly is known as a very good school) is super hot on special needs and other provision so each child genuinely has the support they need, and the teachers are communicative and care about all the children. The only bad thing I can say about the school mine go to is for some reason they eat their lunch in the playground rather than having a proper lunch hour (and it's all packed - no provided dinners).

What comes as a shock if you're coming from the UK is the amount of involvement you are expected to have, and how proscriptive it can be - eg buying all the kids school books, parental contribution, specifying what kind of bag they should bring, and supervising daily homework, which seems more involved than at the UK school my kids went to, or the international schools they were at.

When it gets to secondary, I think it's likely we will send the kids private - but it should be mentioned that it's 1/3rd of the price of a UK school, so much more achievable for normal people.

I find that English people try to pigeon hole the Irish as they can't tell much from an accent or an education, so we baffle them. A lot of my English colleagues thought I came from money. I didn't correct them

My schools were excellent, Catholic but religion was not rammed down our throats. There were two or three school masses a year. 'Religion class' consisted of talking about what was going on in the world, and discussing a diverse range of issues broadly located in psychology or sociology.

My impression is that UK Catholic schools are a lot more religious.

In general I just really prefer the Irish school system because of the broader range of subjects. I definitely see the appeal of A levels because it allows you to follow your interests, but I think it's too young to focus on three subjects.

Yes, it was definitely a thing in about 1984. They may have decided to cut costs and drop it as neither of my DC went through this.

I've a colleague from Donegal and she thought it was an oooo la la thing that we had elocution lessons, but it was just an ordinary national school. I remember the lady gave out to me for picking my nose, so I switched off after that. That learned her :-p

I get the impression it was to look good on the schools application form. She said all the kids in dc's class have Irish names so I'm thinking it's a subtle MC marker?!
Yes my sister expressed regret after she named her child a non Irish name and then put childs name down for Irish school. She said all the other kids would have better sounding Irish names.. she gave her next child a VERY Irish name..

@Hatstrategicallydipped

I find that English people try to pigeon hole the Irish as they can't tell much from an accent or an education, so we baffle them. A lot of my English colleagues thought I came from money. I didn't correct them

This is true. They cannot read us. Not sure they're trying!!

In general I just really prefer the Irish school system because of the broader range of subjects. I definitely see the appeal of A levels because it allows you to follow your interests, but I think it's too young to focus on three subjects.

I think it shows a lot with English people. They can be highly educated, but their knowledge is very limited in scope.

A levels would suit my son better than the LC. He has no gift at all for languages. If he could just do maths, applied maths and physics he'd be flying but having to figure out strategies to scrape a D in english and irish are a challenge.

I'll put it to you this way OP. I went to an average state secondary in Ireland-
Out of my close friends we have
3 primary teachers (a well paid job here)
2 nurses
A psychiatrist
A CEO Of an international company
A dog groomer- own business
A microbiologist
An orthopaedic surgeon
A barrister

The rest of my year are similar-
A lot of nurses and teachers- most work abroad though - UAE etc
A few went into business and did really well in Dublin/London
A lot went into science degrees- environmental, pharmacy etc
One is in media here in Ireland- well enough known.
And business was a popular choice for my year too...

I know this mostly through word of mouth(that's the Irish for ya 🤣)...Facebook etc

As an Irish teacher I absolutely agree that the Irish system is superior. For kids and staff alike, much healthier and happier approach to learning. I wouldn't touch working or schooling my own kids in England (particularly England, rest of the UK seems more tolerable) with a barge pole.

However...

I can - whilst the classes are still 30 (mine are in a national school), there is a teacher and an assistant in every class

This is very rare in Irish schools ime. Well, not the 30+ bit but an assistant in each class isn't common.

I don't know how many subjects are usually studied at GCSE level in the UK? In Ireland we do 9 or 10. So I did 10 for e.g.
Irish
English
Maths
French
History
Geography
Science
Business Studies
Home Economics (Domestic Science in the UK?)

For Leaving Cert I did
Irish
English
Maths
French
Physics
Chemistry
Biology

At uni I studied Business (despite my 3 sciences!) and have worked in Business all of my life.

Correction - I did 9 at Junior Cert level/GCSE

The high representation of private schools in Trinity would be explained a lot by those achieving higher points coming from educated intelligent parents perhaps where a focus may have been more on their academics than on their ability to play Gaelic for their county.

Honestly as someone who worked in a private school we had our fair share of the dim and lazy. Difference was mainly that the parents were able to pay for expensive grinds (and in some cases bought their kids way out of Irish with an exemption from a dubious Ed Psych).

I think the pp means an Sna in a lot of classes perhaps. The Irish primary curriculum is Child-centred, holistic, process over product, depth over width of learning. Lots of experiential and project work. 3h of the arts per week say. I do love the variety we have in teaching. Standardised tests annually but that's one week and it's not a public situation as parents are informed privately wrt ranking and it's a percentile rank.

I abhor the Catholic Church - I mean the Lord would strike me down were I to enter one, however, one thing that the bastards could actually do was to educate. It's the only screed of credit I'll give them.

Religious schools as a pp said not really overly religious bar prep for sacraments. Apart from that, generally, there is no big difference, from a teacher's point of view in a denominational vs. an ET. I have taught in both.

V true re achievements of classmates from the local convent.

and if you want to see cars as an ostentatious display of wealth, Belfast is the place to go!

Ha! Try Bangor.

@Deadringer

Tbf Trinity college is considered fairly elite, so isn't necessarily a good example. My dc go/went to UCD and consider Trinity as being very posh. There are a lot of private schools in Dublin, where Trinity is located, if 70% of such an elite university's students come from state schools, surely that shows how good the state schools are?

Isn't UCD Catholic and Trinity Protestant? I was considering studying in Ireland, and my Irish relatives were a bit outraged I was considering Trinity (we're all Catholic)!

YANBU. The Irish "middle class" would be more like lower-middle or upper-working class in Britain.

Isn't UCD Catholic and Trinity Protestant?

Trinity was set up for Protestant students back in the day. There is no other university in Ireland (that I know of) which would have a religious associations.

UCD Catholic yes I suppose. Went there, never considered that at all ie not a thing. No one thinks like that about trinners either, certainly anyone I know.

Apart from the place in Maynooth where the priests go to study!!

Mater Dei (is that a Primary School place?) might be Catholic?

Not relevant in modern times anyway.