Ireland is a hard place to live

[Mooshamoo]

Just watching the video of the black child being not given a medal by Irish gymnastics.

I was wondering if there is anyone else on here on craicnet, who is not Irish, living in Ireland. What your experiences are.

I think that Ireland can be a very hard place to live if you are not fully white and fully irish.

I'm half Irish. I was bullied all the way through school for not having an Irish surname. Then when I grew up and lived in the same small town, all of the same girls from my school were living in that town. And as adults they refused to talk to me.

I see the women who are fully Irish, being popular , having great lives.

To be totally acceptable and popular in ireland, you have to have a rich family, brothers/father who play gaa etc.

All the rich girls in my school hung around together. And again as adults all the rich Irish women hung around together in small town Ireland.

If you were foreign, from a single parent family, seen as poor, you were not accepted at all.

And it's who you know

I think this makes Ireland a very difficult place to live

@Mooshamoo

It is heartbreaking to read your post. But you have to realise that life is worth living and there are so many wonderful and kind people out there in Ireland and elsewhere that would I’m sure welcome you into their world.

as for the ladies who bullied you - I would have surely thought they would have grown out of that horrid behaviour by now? Do you know they would be bullying you in your 30s / has it happened recently?

perhaps after all these years in order to try have some closure on what happened to you (which sounds horrific and you have my sympathy - I’ve been bullied too and if I think about it enough the fear and hurt comes flooding back) you should arrange a meeting and tell these people how you feel - they might not realise how much hurt they caused you. They might try to make amends?

im just throwing out ideas there in the hope you realise there are ways through this and nothing or no one is worth keeping you away from having a happy and settled life. I do hope you are ok

No they don't grow out of it. No matter what she they are. They have your name and reputation ruined. They are impossible to deal with. Small town Ireland is so cliquey and it is really intense bullying. They bully you to the point where it is not possible to live there.

I moved away from my hometown for most of my twenties. I moved back in my early thirties for two years for family reasons.

I joined the local ladies football team. Instantly the bullying started again. This is what happens.

There was no one that had been in my year in school on the team. But their sisters and cousins and friends were on the team.

These were people that I had not met before. But I would have met their sisters or cousins before. Instantly whispering started about me on the team "that's the weird English girl from the English family". "She is really weird don't talk to her". "She's English".

Then absolutely everyone on the team will refuse to speak to me. They are extremely aggressive and they bully me out of every situation.

*no matter what age they are

I'm Irish living in England with a holiday home in cork . I love Ireland but the casual racism/ anti Brit culture is shocking still. It's not everyone all the time but it exists and it's stupid , my DH is Scottish and I'm Irish but apparently Brexit is all our fault and anti British sentiment is acceptable from friends and neighbours. My son was bullied in summer camp and when I complained to the coach I was told it was because of his accent

I'm in Ireland at the mo. Have to be because of elderly very sick mother. Who had a heart attack.

But I honestly feel like life is so so awful. No matter where I go in Ireland , football teams, workplaces, these women I went to school with turn everyone against me, until I have absolutely no one to talk to.

I'm a nervous wreck entering workplaces. Imagine the joy of being able to start a job without being worried about who your going to bump into, or what abuse I'm going to get this time

I remember talking to another English girl in college. She lived in a different county to me. She lived in Roscommon. Her family moved over from England. She said she had the same thing happen to her, all the local girls refused to take to her in school, then they turned everyone againsy her and made her life a misery in college and in local jobs. She had to leave and go and live in Australia.

apparently Brexit is all our fault
Weeelll

I'm really sorry you have had such a difficult time and are having such a difficult time still.

Do you think this is common in Ireland?

I moved from England to Ireland when I was ten. Yes, there was huge hatred towards the English as a group but it was never directed straight to me. It was more like 'I hope England lose x match' etc etc. It took a while to get used to this.

I live in the countryside outside a small village. I have lived here since I was 10. I rarely see the people I went to primary school with now as they have moved away, but do see their brothers, sisters, cousins as you have said. It is shocking that adults are acting the way you say they are.

I work in the nearest large city and nobody from my area works there or has any connections there.

Just adding the above points to explain why I am asking if you think your scenario is common in Ireland.

Poster is irish. Her husband is Scottish. Scotland voted to remain in the EU.

So how is Brexit her fault?

See I would like to work in a large city. Where I could be more anonymous. There are no cities near me. I'm right in Midlands Ireland. It's all small towns.

My nearest large city - Dublin is 2 hours away on the train. It wouldn't be worth me getting a job there really, as all the money would be eaten up on transport. And I can't afford to rent there.

Thanks for that post. The kind words were appreciated.

Maybe people just don't like you or find you unfriendly etc, might have nothing to do with your nationality. If you are as critical of people in person as you are here that may be a problem.

And then there is extended family...a blessing or a curse?
In our case a curse for sure.
Both my parents came from big families (no contraceptive allowed in their day. I'm so pleased that has changed). So I had aunts and uncles and 100s of cousins nearby. They interfered and passed comments on all our choices (especially on our choice not to raise our children as catholic), I found that to be really rude.People from my generation tend to just shrug and ignore these relatives and their comments but I found it very difficult.

I dont think I've been critical to anyone on this thread.

It is definitely to do with nationality.

My family in Ireland is a bit mixed. My mother had seven brothers and sisters. Three of them including her, went to work in England , had children in England, then came back to Ireland.

Four of her siblings remained in Ireland. The children of these siblings are fully irish. They have all sailed through life. They have all had a great school life, great college life. They were on sports teams. They were fully accepted a lot every step of the way. They all had really happy lives.

The children of m mother's three siblings who went to England and then came back to Ireland , have all suffered really bad lives in Ireland .

Me and my brother had a bad life.

My uncle went to England , he had a son called Ryan there, then he moved back to Ireland when Ryan was a teenager. Ryan was relentlessly bullied in Ireland. He made no friends. As an adult he had to move back to England.

My other aunt moved to England, had a daughter there then moved back, this daughter was also bullied in Ireland.

It got so bad - it got to the point where my fully Irish cousins didn't want to hang around with us as we were so unpopular because we were english. They didn't want to be dragged down with us.

Still now my fully Irish cousins are closer with each other , then they are to us that are half English half irish. We were bullied so badly that the fully Irish cousins didn't really want to be seen to be associated with us

I’m just so appalled and disgusted (as an Irish person / human being) that these people at their age , in this day and age are still acting like this and make your life a misery because of where you came from / your accent. It’s pathetic and makes my blood boil.

when I was moving back to Ireland after all my years abroad with my English H and children I too was worried about the anti-English comments. It’s not the reason why we moved back to the UK (that was due to me being bullied in my workplace (which I’d never experienced in all the 17 years I worked as an Irish person in England), the high house prices and cost of living, lack of school places where we lived) but my children did get comments about their accents, digs about the “Brits” and “Brexit”. In fact one of my best friends said “it will hopefully be no time at all until they lose their accents” which I was appalled at (and thought how stupid they were in saying it) and at no time did I feel the need to say something about their children’s accent. It’s like this level of causal racism is accepted and ingrained in how some people think and they don’t see it as an issue.

on top of that I was fed up with the constant “Sure UK is fucked, why would you want to live there” “Sure the Uk is the world’s butler to all the big world corporations and are corrupt” “Sure the UK is run by a bunch of Tories who hate the poor” and so on. Honestly, I thought it laughable because everything they said about the UK could be said about Ireland - the parties have conservative, capitalist policies; they have Chinese and US firms funnelling money through the system; they have foreign vulture funds buying up the housing stock leaving half the population being unable to afford a home. Pot kettle black and all that. There’s not much difference between the two countries on the ground if I’m being honest. Now of course this wasn’t everyone we encountered but it was said enough times that I remember it enough to write it down. The statement from my best friend was by far though the most hurtful.

going back to your position - will there be a time comes that you would think about leaving the country? Or move across the border maybe? A fresh start seems something that might help you? Keep the chin up.

@Mudflaps Jesus Wept! Come on there was no need to say something as nasty as that was there? You’re kind of just reinforcing the OP point by being so mean. If you don’t like it fine but no need to be nasty to someone who has been through so much and is clearly hurting.

Jesus, go easy will ya. OP is struggling.

Gah! Wrote a long reply of thanks to you and lost it! Glad to hear this experience of your son. I'm irish too and have moved back after nine years in England. One child was born in England and is proud of his English heritage. (Their dad is English). Thanks for sharing. I would say more, but fed up losing my replies!!

@Mudflaps and just to be clear on your point about the OP being critical - I don’t think the OP is being critical of people in general - she’s clearly telling her horrific story of the bullying she received and is critical of the gobshites that treated her so poorly - which of course she is - we all would feel and say the same things she is saying if we had been through such an ordeal (and is continuing to be bullied). And those types of people deserve to be called out and criticised by being such horrendous human beings. Bullying does happen the world over and it happens in Ireland and that’s a fact and the OP is only calling it out and rightly so.

I'm half Irish, half English, with a very English name, but born and raised in Ireland. I also had a couple of classmates who moved over as children and had English accents.

Other than a few jokes, etc, there were never any real problems. I was at school in the 80s and 90s.

Kids can be shitheads and bullies will use any excuse to torment someone.

I don't agree that Ireland today is closed minded and homogeneous, quite the opposite. I have colleagues and neighbours from all over the world, who have integrated here and are happy to raise their families here.

OP it seems like you're fixating on things that happened a long time ago and it's just a vicious circle. Have you tried therapy?

@Mooshamoo it seems inevitable that your longer term plan will be to leave when you can but is there anything you could do in the meantime to make your time here more bearable? Are there any activities you could take up or clubs/hobbies etc? Despite your horrible childhood experiences, English people would not generally be viewed as unusual (even up the country). I have a few English family members who married into an Irish speaking family and they assimilated fine in Connemara. I assume they do get the usual 'bantz' when the football is on but it's all in jest/gentle ribbing. It's terrible that the childhood bullies still have this hold over you. They were nothing but bitches and you were just unlucky, bullies will always pick out a difference for an 'easy' victim and yours was your accent. But it's absolutely not representative of the majority of Irish people.

@Mooshamoo I completely understand what you mean about Ireland being so small that everyone knows everyone etc etc and how this just helps fuel (and protect ) the bullies. I found this out the hard way too after returning to Ireland - my story is that I was badly bullied in my workplace by people who knew I’d brought my whole family and life from a different country to work for them. I was ignored (professionally ghosted), isolated, discriminated against to the point I had to lawyer up. I reached out to 16 lawyers in the republic asking them to help me with my case. I never got a reply from 12 of them and the four that did reply told me that they were conflicted from acting as they knew the people / company I had a case against. I asked a lawyer friend what was going on and he said “oh well they probably all know each other from school / uni / law college and don’t want to go against each other” and he said this just very causally and wasn’t at all appalled by the situation. I also spoke to another friend in my profession and the exact same thing happened to him after 20 years in the UK so at least I wasn’t the only one.

In the end the only person that helped me was a lawyer in NI.

So there you go - that’s another example of bullying and how the bullies can get away with it because of the fact “everyone knows everyone and looks out for eachother”. I was an outsider here despite being born here, reared here and went to uni here but coming back after years abroad.
for what it’s worth the Ni lawyer helped me win my case (it was a strong one so I was always going to win).

as an Irish person I was appalled at how badly I was treated and my family in Ireland were ashamed on my half too.

Oh and to add to my previous comments about my BF making derogatory statements about my children’s accents - after all the atrocious stuff I’d been through in Ireland (which had a direct impact on my children and marriage) one of the first things that my BF said when we returned to the UK wasn’t “I hope you’re ok and settled back in and the kids are ok” NO it was “Have you and the kids got your posh English accent back yet”

so there you go. That is my real life story of my recent experience of bullying. So I completely sympathise with you OP and wish you all the strength in the world to move on from such an ordeal because Christ knows, it broke me and has taken a whole lot of strength to get back on my feet.

final note - I know my experience is personal to me and is unfortunate but I know the vast majority of people (including my family) had no issue with the different accents. As others have said, lots of good people out there who don’t care where you are from / what your accent is. And lots of success stories about integration etc. Unfortunately for me, I so happened to bump into some arseholes during my time there but that will happen anywhere I suppose. One of life’s hard lessons.

Thanks for sharing that Justamum. Sorry to hear about your bullying at work? What happened at work. If you could give a little more detail , it's very interesting to hear about.

Well done on standing up for yourself with them

@Mooshamoo thanks. The way I see it I just happened to run into a bad apple in the workplace unfortunately. It doesn’t make me think the whole of Ireland including all my friends and family are xenophobic (just like the poster above had experienced discrimination in England but didn’t hold that against a nation). It is life - I suppose I’ve been lucky in the sense that this was the first time I had encountered this in my career in all the nearly 20 years I’ve worked in the industry. And that I had courage to stand up, call it out and fight it - despite being told by many just to let it go and move on. I’m proud that I did that and made it known in that industry that what had happened to me wasn’t right and no one deserves to be treated like that. However, because of how small the industry is and I made as many people aware of how I was treated as I could, I probably would have found it difficult to work in it again ( in Ireland) because such and such knows such and such etc. I was even told this by the person who bullied me. You see - that’s how bullying in the workplace is kept alive - you don’t say anything out of fear of losing your job or people talking if you walk. But im too long in the tooth for that BS and I wasn’t going to stand for that and that’s why I took them on. And won.