Irish mn'ers, how much can you relate to UK mumsnetters?

[Anotherdayanotherdollar]

I read a lot of different threads on here, and recently I have come across so many issues/practices that I think just don't happen in Ireland. Now, I could be completely off the mark here, obviously there's local/cultural differences everywhere!

I don't know any parents who attend childrens birthday parties with their children (unless family etc),

I'm not aware of any dads who work "compressed hours" to care for their children. Although I know a lot of parents who work opposite shifts I suppose.

Funerals and the culture and practices surrounding death are all very different.

I don't have an abundance of parks/softplay/childrens activities nearby. If I did I'm sure they'd be too expensive to just pop in after school etc. 2 within 40 mins drive of me are €8-10 per hr.

Most children just go to their local school (baptism barrier dependent)

New mums here all seem to be inundated with visitors in hospital after their babies are born. I've never come across a new mum who isn't having visitors for the first week/fortnight etc so that they can bond.

Just a few examples there. So, are these typical observations of Irish people? Or just where I live/work? I know that local amenities are dependent on funding etc but it just seems that despite our close proximity to the UK there are big differences in day to day life.
I hope that all comes across ok. I'm just curious really.

Although i have not lived in England, i have worked there for spells any have many many colleagues there over the years. These observstions may be a bit skewed, but....

Two things i noticed were:

1. There seemed to not be the same mixing in the community - in ireland your neighbours & friends could be trades people, unemployed, professional people, unemployed, farmers/sons&daughters of farmers, shopkeepers etc.

Many English colleagues commented over the years that they were moving house as they / their children had little in common with other people in their area.

1. Involvement in the community ... the irish seem to be more involved in providing facilities and "entertainment" at very low cost, e.g. Sport (GAA, soccor, rugby etc), music/bands, scouts/boys&girls brigade, amateur dramatics etc etc. There are many things on, run by volunteers at no/very low cost.

My English counterparts had limited facilities, didnt seem to be involved in running / suporting community projects and seemed to pay a lot for expensive passtimes for their children.

My DH is Irish.

He is incapable of being on time for things but i think that's more to do with his family than being Irish.

Funerals are quicker than in Scotland. His grandmother died on a friday and cremated the Monday. Mine died on a Saturday and it was a good fortnight or three weeks before her cremation.

I was surprised at listening to adverts on the radio that were about health issues. My MIL was concerned she had a tumour in her lungs, we figured it was because of repeated adverts asking about coughs and that they could be a sign of CANCER. The ads took me by surprise.

I was also amazed by how important the Late Late Toy Show is. It's brilliant, but there's nothing like it in the UK.

Yes Jeremiah, the toy show!

I can't believe you were the first to mention it. On page 14! Its almost sacred

Haha! The Toy show is more important than mass now !
Celebrate!!

Some people have already mentioned it, but the timescale of relationships struck be as very different between UK (when I lived there) and Ireland.

Typical trajectory in Ireland seems to be meet in your 20s, move in together a few months later (maybe a year or more later), stay that way for years, get engaged and married once over 30, have first kid shortly after. (Or have kid first, then get married a year or two later).

Typical trajectory in the UK seems to be meet in your 20s, get engaged a few months later then move in together (or the other way round, but in fairly quick succession), get married in your 20s, have first kid shortly after.

The UK timescale all seemed so rushed to me, and with a greater emotional cost to everyone if a relationship broke up within 3-5 years. In Ireland, if a couple broke up after 3-5 years they were probably still in the living together stage. In the UK, they were more likely to be married and even have kids by then.

Relationships move much much slower for sure!! I wouldn’t know anyone who moved in together before 2/3 years as a couple. And it’s often much much longer. And it’s very unusual to have a planned child in your 20s.

Im interested reading this cos I’m English and have lived in England for most of my life but mumsnet is often a parallel universe to me - my family are all Scottish/Irish/ from the North east of England if that’s got anything to do with it! A lot of the things that have come up as being ‘english’ are often things I think of as being ‘Mumsnetish’. I would say Scotland is culturally different to England too in a lot of the ways mentioned. Mumsnet is very ‘home counties’ to me - though I know not everyone on here can be from there.

Can I throw in the fact that fans from both teams in any gaa (Irish football/hurling)match mingle and generally have the craic together, whereas I understand football fans in England are much more segregated.

Also my family are all Protestant Irish/northern Irish/Scottish and I still find mumsnet Englishness wierd I don’t think it’s a catholic thing necessarily

Mumsnet is very ‘home counties’ to me - though I know not everyone on here can be from there.

I'm sure they're not, but I think there is a lot of pressure to sound as if you are from there to fit in on MN. Not so much by address, but by perceived status.

SilverViking

I wonder if your comments on community involvement are more a reflection of urban/suburban/rural differences than Ireland/England.

I grew up in suburban England and there seemed to be far less community involvement than the rural area I now live in in England.

@choli - yes definitely in certain sections (cough cough education boards)

I did live in Funlin for many years and that social isolation, doctors children not going to school with unemployed persons children was there too.
Also they were horrified at the kind of people I was friends with because they had just never knowingly met different kinds of people.

Also the competitiveness for school places was very apparent. So I do think an urban/ rural divide is part of it.

The school competitiveness thing in Dublin is mostly just south Dublin, though. And only parts of south Dublin, at that, plus a few scattered places around the country with high levels of wealth where some people send their kids to private schools: a definite minority at any rate. There are whole swathes of urban Dublin where there is little or no school competitiveness (though it still might be tough to get a place in your closest school due to a general shortage of school places).

So I don't buy the idea of school competitiveness in Ireland being an urban vs. rural thing. More of a southsider/wealthy vs. everyone else thing.

Yes I did work in south dublin so that might very well be true.

I'm English, born and bred just outside London. This thread has made me miss an ex work colleague so much! She came over for a few years but has gone back home now with her partner. The differences between some things have my mind boggling (or my head wrecked as she would say!), the lack of public transport over there, the fact she'd speak to god knows how many of her family multiple times a day, the way everyone would just move country/continent for work which must have been even more of a wrench considering the closeness...

I cried when she said she was going back (I'm not a crier!) because I was so happy for her finding a good job, and getting to be back with her family and friends. I miss her stories about loads of people I'd never know, literally the ins and outs of a ducks arse, how thoughtful she was, her dry wit.

(Sorry, total tangent here but I've loved reading this thread!)

@cheeseislife, get on a plane and visit her!

I also use my postcode it's great. Where I grew up it was a nightmare situation of having to describe how to get to the house. I can go back to my parents' house now and order a takeaway. Give them the postcode. I start up with my ''it's near the foot of the rocky valley'' routine and they cut me short to say 'ur, yeh, google maps''

I live in a village in rural Ireland with few house names and no house numbers. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to reassure UK Ebay sellers that no, my address is not incomplete and yes, the postman really does know where everyone lives. At one point he even managed to deliver post addressed to my neighbour's dog.

I wish couriers would use the bloody eircodes though. I'm still resorting to telling them to ring me when the pass the local school and I'll stand out on the road and wave them down...

Couriers around here often leave parcels to be collected from random shops in town. Saves them trying to find you.

And can I add a very topical one. That every year, the national newspapers write articles about the questions that came up in the Leaving Cert. Today I read about the question on lipids in leaving cert home economics. HOW is this news???!! And the Irish times quotes all these teachers on the fairness of the questions.

I’m a northerner in Dublin over 20 years and still can’t get used to this. I get exams are important to those doing them, but everyone else seems quite interested too?!

That cracks Scottish DH up - the unfairness of a leaving cert . English Heaney question when he was asked last year...
Being debated In National newspaper

Nearly 40 years later I still hear my Home Ec teachers voice every time I read the word lipids.

But we're going to be dreaming of the leaving cert for the rest of our adult lives? How can it not be worthy of an article in the IT?

I'm still having nightmares about not understanding any of the questions on the Irish papers 28 years later. Do UK Mumsnetters have recurring dreams about their A levels?