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

Wasn't there a thread recently by Irish people living in England hating that their kids liked and showed allegiance to the country their parents had chosen to raise them in?

It's so parochial and insular an attitude.

@Goodornot yep some of the comments on that post were pretty sad to read in this day and age. Can you imagine if that same post was started by non-Irish person bringing their kids up in Ireland and being horrified by some of the Irish / cultural stuff their kids were doing. It’s really sad some people think like this. If they have such an issue with it then move to the country you want your kids brought up in. My kids loved being involved in all the GAA , Irish dancing , music and Irish speaking when we lived in Ireland. My English husband absolutely loved and encouraged our children to get involved in all things Irish when we were there. It didn’t upset him when they were supporting Ireland in the football or rugby. And equally they love and are involved in all the stuff over here that is perceived as being more English - like supporting the England team in the World Cup etc. Either way it didn’t horrify me what they were doing - they’re just kids and getting involved in their community and local culture. Let them be at it and not stop them doing it because of what went on in the past between the two countries, in my opinion.

It's a pretty sad attitude to be passed down generation to generation. If you make another country your children's home you have to accept they'll feel part of it.

If it's the thread I'm thinking of I think you're misrepresenting it a bit. The OP said nothing about hatred. She was trying to integrate her DC into English life.
However she said she found it strange that, when travelling through NI, her daughter saw British flags as representing home, welcome etc.
As someone growing up in a border county she had been conditioned to see areas festooned with British flags as dangerous (if the car broke down for example). It was a feeling of strangeness and disconnect from her child's experiences she spoke about, not hatred.

Yeah, she is misrepresenting it. And I am a non Irish person that said I find strange sometimes my kids growing up in Ireland, in a different culture than I did. Nobody on that thread was 'horrified' by anything except the people that were intent on making it about something it wasn't 🙄

I live in Ireland and I really love it , my dh is not Irish and we’ve lived abroad. I actually do think you have some good points . There is rampant nepotism in Ireland , I absolutely hate this so, so much, so different to other countries tbh and incredibly unprofessional omg. I’m working in education now , I’ve a relevant degree and post grad and other qualifications specifically in education (pgce etc ) , I’ve come across many, many “teachers” who are not qualified and working in nice jobs . I suspected that people were given jobs by people they knew (one of the reasons I lived abroad) but it’s actually fckn true!!
I find that so so frustrating and so unfair to the people who actually train etc . Ive come across so many situations where jobs are not even advertised.
I find a lot doing holy communions and confirmations complete hypocrites, most don’t darken the door of the church regularly and some are the ones bitching about the church !
However I find Irish people really open , literally the best country I’ve come across ever for being able to engage and communicate with people really naturally. My husband has had no issues really with being foreign. I do find some areas to be insular but that’s true of any country tbh .
I think Ireland has an huge obesity problem and I swear to God breastfeeding seems to be extinct here , it’s so so weird , no one breastfeeds. I’ve lived abroad and it was much healthier re breastfeeding, food etc.
Not at all what you asked though. Do you live in a country location ?

BFing seemed to be totally shunned for years! No idea why. My dd is 12 and my mum is young enough and a fairly rational person, but she was very much not encouraging BF, before i had even tried, it was so strange! Sadly, i only managed a month, ended up back in hospital a month after dd was born and i couldn't make it work. I was bereft, but mum seemed strangely relieved!

Much of the thread wasn't in that vein.

It's so childish my country is better than yours...type of attitude.

Yes I’m a non Irish person and I would agree with you OP, I lived in an area which is very ‘local’ as in most people were born here and my kids went to the local school. My children, even with Irish accents were never allowed to be in the groups, where all the parents knew each other from way back, went to the same tennis clubs or GAA. Both my kids made friends with other ‘outsiders’ and all the black kids formed a group with each other, and there wasn’t much mixing at all.

Even though I married an Irish man, my in laws still moaned openly to me about outsiders taking up all the school places and I was constantly brought up for not using the right phrase, pronounced in the right way. In short I was really surprised about how unwelcoming it was.

That said, I had family in Ireland, and they made me feel better by saying that it really wasn’t my fault, that they had known other people feel the same. And I did find some lovely friends from Ireland who were a lot more open minded, but it took a while and it was constantly a ‘thing’ that I had a different background, it was like people couldn’t see beyond that at all.

I’ve now moved back to my home country partly because it just never got any easier. And this despite having Irish relatives and an Irish husband, so I don’t know what it must be like if you don’t.

and I swear to God breastfeeding seems to be extinct here , it’s so so weird , no one breastfeeds
That is completely untrue

No it wasn't, because I think some people didn't really understand what the OP was saying.
They didnt understand what it was like to grow up in or near NI. The OP didn't speak of hatred at all, but people made it about that. OP left quickly iirc.

Unfortunately these threads attract a lot of hyperbole.

Yeah. I was a big fan of BF actually and the classes were always full. BF for nearly 6 years altogether. It's here all right.
Have to say my mum wasn't really a fan though - that bit I identity with!

Not first hand, but...
My son and DiL were part of the great tech surge into Dublin. They lived there two years and found life quite difficult and not a lot of fun. DiL is Jewish and when we visited we were invited to her synagogue (tiny and more like a school hall than a synagogue). It had bouncers on the door. Not big burly professional ones, but young jewish men who volunteered to just be a presence. And a buzzer system. DiL said there was a lot of anti semitism there and there had been threats made to the synagogue.
They returned to London as soon as they could. Synagogue there has no such security. The only other place I've seen this is in Berlin, where there were actual metal detectors at the door. I know there is awful racism and antisemitism in lots of places but OP asked about Ireland and this was the experience.
our impression of Dublin was that it was super expensive - comparable to London but without the infrastructure (awful public transport unless you lived right on the DART) or quantity of culture. Obv London is huge and Dublin isnt. But it felt quite insular. And I live in a rural part of the extreme west of England so know all about insular!

Well Jane . How are you these days

Oh I'm grand @Mooshamoo living here in this terrible country with all the awful people. Good thing it's an island so we don't infect everyone else.

Right

There seems to be a huge amount of misunderstanding here. And no doubt another dollop of racism/suspicion of foreigners. In general, irish people are welcoming and accepting. There are obviously some that are not. There will also be instances of people being a bit 'ignorant' for want of a better word, just never having experienced 'others'. This is an inevitable consequence of being a closed off country until relatively recently. Unfortunately, you can't educate this stuff out of everyone very quickly. It's trundling along, but you'd have to be an idiot to think you can click your fingers in a country that was so white-catholic-irish and expect that people won't be at least curious (and put their foot in it from time to time) and at worst (sadly) racist.

There seems to be a huge amount of misunderstanding here.
I understand the thread perfectly well.

Wasn't talking about you 🤨

My comment stands nevertheless @Chickenkeev

I know your name and you've always seemed sound. So i'm not quite understanding what you're getting at. Maybe i'm missing some massive point but i'm not getting it.

I know your name and you've always seemed sound.
People are not always what they seem.

Anyway I'm off to tune my banjo.

I don't think that is nice to say to people who are struggling in Ireland Jane.

If someone said to me that they moved to Ireland and they received a lot of racist abuse, I would feel sympathy for them.

If someone said to me that they moved to England and received a lot of racist abuse, I'd feel sympathy for them too.

I know it goes on in both places.

You need to be able to be critical of your own country. You're always defending Ireland. I think if you want to be a more rounded person you need to see the good and bad parts of a country. I can see the good sides of Ireland too.

@Upsetrethis you don't sound like you love Ireland