I fear the "craic" is gone from Ireland forever

[afternooncuppa]

Just that really. However, I would love to be told I'm wrong so would love to hear your views.

My parents are Irish living in England and I spent a lot of my childhood and youth there and still visited at least 4 times a year pre-Covid. To me, my heart belongs in Ireland and I was hoping to move there at some point. When I was younger (in my late teens/early twenties) my group of friends consisted of English, French, Spanish and Italian backgrounds and EVERY holiday they always wanted to go to Ireland because the "craic" was so great and could not be matched in their countries. Ireland had everything (apart from the weather) - music, life, bands, dancing, laughing, joking, wildness, patriotism, Guinness, more Guinness and CRAIC. Living and enjoying life to the full.

Now Covid has hit and although it has changed countries everywhere, I can't help but think that Irelands draconian reaction has destroyed the country beyond repair. Not only economically (as everywhere) but the very things they are famous for, the very soul of the place has gone. They seem hell-bent on zero-Covid (which is impossible) and are running the country into the ground to achieve this. My own healthy and young cousins are too scared to step outside the door due to the "deadly" virus (which it is not). I know wet pubs have been shut for about a year with many unlikely to re-open. I've heard of the staggeringly ridiculous actions of the Garda to prevent humans being humans and I despair.

St Patricks Day last week watching old videos on my phone in crowded bars with live music, drink flowing, dancing and craic made me want to cry at the loss of everything Ireland was and the fear it will never return.

Does anyone think it will ever come back?

Link here : Ireland has the strictest lockdown in all of Europe , and the fourth strictest in the whole world

www.irishpost.com/news/irelands-coronavirus-lockdown-ranked-toughest-in-europe-and-4th-toughest-in-the-world-204462

In fairness Sarah, that index is based on national-level restrictions and doesn't take into account regional restrictions in countries where the rules are set by regional/federal government.

In most of those cases, the regional covid rules are far more restrictive than the national-level rules, but that index doesn't examine such distinctions.

There was a long post about it somewhere upthread. Small countries tend to have national restrictions and large countries tend to have regional/federal restrictions, hence small countries will always look more strict when you rank by national rules.

And I agree that your posts came across as pretty patronising, btw. I thought they were goady and wouldn't have guessed your stated intention was to be helpful.

@MarDhea you haven't just been rude to me. You told another poster who said that the rules are draconian, to "cop on" and that people who question the rules are "bleating".

Lovely! Change you nasty attitude

In fact the level of nastiness and rudeness on this thread that has been directed at the OP is disgusting.

I see that she has said that she felt that people were being rude to her on here

A lot of you on here should be ashamed of yourselves. Some of those posts were disgustingly vicious and nasty to the OP

Hi there,
I am Irish, living in Ireland...and think the Op has point!! Im hopeful the craic will come back (in spades), but I think that fear has taken over for now (and maybe rightly so). Our media has alot to answer for on this.
Overall though, I have a feeling it will come back...once our small businesses survive. It's been tough for every country and we will need the craic in the years ahead!

geeka yes indeed. It was the comparison with North Korea that took the for me.

It's great we're still allowed internet access in Ireland.

Don't you just love it when a Brit comes in to tell the uncouth Irish idiots what is going on in the rest of the world?

Here - knock yourself out with this article

www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/white-irish-in-uk-earn-41-more-than-white-british-pay-gap-report-finds-1.4527558?fbclid=IwAR2k2wrsAsDQAj7YGOHb4i47h6rQ5-JqjuOvPMRzB-TOUW0_Fnqen_RGViw

We're not uneducated louts. We do have internet access. Admittedly, we're still on dial-up, but we get there in the end

Yes, Irish measures are strict. We don't have the accolade that the UK has of having the 2nd highest death rate in the world.

@MarDhea

geeka yes indeed. It was the comparison with North Korea that took the for me.

One of these days MarDhea we might get Sky, NBC, CNN and maybe the BBC (though I believe our draconian leaders are not keen on the latter). Some of us might even speak foreign languages and refer to foreign language media (admittedly, it takes about a month for the post to come from France with the Sunday papers). I know a fella down the road who has a daughter in Sydney. She's the only one who escaped the village though. Something dodgy went on there to be fair.

I love the idea of someone saving us from ourselves. Coming on here to educate us as to what's happening in the rest of the world. I'd never have known a thing about covid if it wasn't for Sarah.

Have you any advice on what we might do now Sarah? Would there be anything to be said for another Mass?

I'll light a candle and stick the Child of Prague out. Might that help us get the craic back Sarah?

The craic survived civil wars and famine and genocide.

I think you're being a little over dramatic.

Ireland has been 100% ott in all this. I went home for 3 months last year due to family reasons and it was shocking, gardai stopping people asking where they were going , never once did I see this here in england, where cases where sky high. There were ads on the radio in Ireland telling people that it was still safe to access emergency medical care and visit their gp, that is how scared people were.yet here we are now a year later and it will be the second coming of christ before Ireland gets half way through its tiny population with vaccines . There are a lot of people who are getting fed up with it all over there now and as time goes on , that number will grow. I was never so glad to come back to the uk as I was last year where life was some bit normal and where there wasnt members of the police force guarding non essential isles in the super markets

I'm glad that the 'draconian' restrictions here contributed to saving more lives than may otherwise have been the case.
I don't think we are going to turn into North Korea either.

I'd say the tolerance for lockdown is thin on the ground. If Ireland does revolt, it will be a spectacular event. When you provoke someone long enough, eventually the worm will turn. When the Irish rebel, they don't do it by halves.

I am not Irish but have travelled there numerous times - personally I feel Craic is more than pubs being open and raucous drunken behaviour... Craic is innate, having a laugh, enjoying chatting with good friends, seeing the funny side of life in everything you do... that is still very much a part of being Irish imo.

@SeaWitchly

I am not Irish but have travelled there numerous times - personally I feel Craic is more than pubs being open and raucous drunken behaviour... Craic is innate, having a laugh, enjoying chatting with good friends, seeing the funny side of life in everything you do... that is still very much a part of being Irish imo.

Exactly, SeaWitchly, that's it.

Ah SeaWitchly that's it all right.

Mise maybe a prayer to St Anthony to find the lost craic?

In the West, in the early 20th c the Gaelic League went about the townlands showing people how to hold tráthanna na gceist and oíche ceol. They noticed that people had no pastimes, they had forgotten songs. There are few to zero nursery rhymes in Irish, children's games had been abandoned. (If you know any, please post them, I'd love to hear them.)

The op maybe does have a point. I would add that we used to play irish tunes and drink a variety of Irish beverages every Saturday night back in the 1980s. It wasn't a holiday thing, it was normal life in an Irish community in England. I do not know if it still exists, hadn't been inside a pub of any kind for ten years or so before covid.

@ismiseeire

Have you any advice on what we might do now Sarah? Would there be anything to be said for another Mass?

Fine example of the craic there!

Ismiseeire: "Don't you just love it when a Brit comes in to tell the uncouth Irish idiots what is going on in the rest of the world?"

I'm Irish! Jesus Christ. What is wrong with some people? You honestly could not make up what some people are like on here.

So you imagined I was British - even though I said I was Irish.
And then you imagined that someone was insulting the Irish.

That kind of sounds like a personality disorder. Get yourself diagnosed.

There seems to be an awful lot of nasitness directed at British people on Craicnet. Which I find disgusting.

Which makes no sense, seeing as Mumsnet is a UK site. So you use this English site, because it so useful for you, and then you insult the "Brits". I see a lot of insults to the"Brits" all over Craicnet. I hate, hate, hate hatred towards English people in Ireland. It disgusts me. I hate racism towards any other nationaility in Ireland. I actually think that it is a big problem in Ireland. I have friends who are Polish, czech etc in Ireland who are always telling me that Irish people are nasty to them.

This thread is full of nastiness to the OP, because she is English (with Irish parents)

I am Irish, But to any posters on here that are British, you are more than welcome here. Do not mind the nasty posters. They will grow up eventually. I am actually going to report any anti english sentiment I see on here. Racism should not be allowed anywhere.

Do report any racist posts you see on MN, Sarah. I know I do.

I can't find any anti-British posts directed towards the OP, but perhaps if I've missed them you could quote them.

I did see several posts giving the OP a hard time for presenting a stereotyped (and rather derogatory) view of Ireland when she doesn't live here. That was justified, imo. Simply being an Irish citizen and/or spending holidays in Ireland does not give anyone carte blanche to claim they have a deep understanding of Irish culture, particularly now during the pandemic.

Understanding of culture comes from living somewhere and immersing yourself in its daily life, particularly if you grew up there and/or have children and therefore have to engage with the cultural norms a country has for raising its young. Commenting on Ireland as it is today with any legitimacy also requires that you live in Ireland today, because the country was very different 10 or 20 years ago. My Polish, Lithuanian, American and Brazilian neighbours are perfectly well equipped to understand and comment on Irish culture on that basis, far more so than the OP.

But as I said, if I've missed any specific anti-British racism towards the OP then please point it out and I'll report the post as well.

Sarahtrue11 I think you're getting a bit paranoid pet. Not every post refers to you.