Is the Irish/Northern Irish social class system the same as UK?

[merrymaryquitecontrary]

Visited Ireland recently and was wondering if there is the same obsession with class as UK? If so, what would the signifiers be? Do people recoil in horror if you use a certain word instead of another 'posher' word? Eg red sauce vs ketchup in the UK. There's no point in this thread other than me just wondering.

Northern Ireland is in the U.K.

No. It's different. Like, class exists but in a different way. Also it's more tied into religion. There's more of a rural/urban divide (but a generation or two back) than a class divide like in the UK, I think. However. I've not lived in Ireland since 2003 so my info is likely very out of date!

Hooboy yes there is a good old class system in NI! Quite geographically focused. The Malone Road set isn’t going to be mixing with the East Belfast lot. There is also quite a lot of old money vs new money as well.

Can’t speak to those down south but there is certainly a divide around rugby playing communities in my experience.

I'm very aware of that thanks, but as it is geographically separate from mainland UK I'm wondering how much of the British class system travels across the water.

Then maybe you should have said mainland U.K.?

Haven’t lived there but have a lot of friends from N.I

there is definitely a middle class that you’d find in any city. The impression I got from friends was that it’s far more socially conservative than in London,
for example, so can be quite snobby and judgy ( a bit like I’m being on this thread! 😂)

I guess it be like all small communities- relatively insular and a bit of the keeping up with the joneses that probably contributes to quite a rigid class system

Yes probably in NI in that there are more affluent areas / grammar schools (a few public schools confusingly called private schools).

I'm not sure people are as concerned about "what class am I" as they seem to be in England though.

In the Republic of Ireland they'd laugh at you if you had ideas above your station, as in - that person "has notions".

There is of course the "horsey set" mostly rural, and the D4 set in South Dublin with the rugby and cricket associations. We call them "West Brits", a throwback to the old Anglo Irish days, and some of the above have ancestors of that stock, but more of them are of the "fur coat and no knickers" variety.

Class is not something I've encountered as either an advantage or a disadvantage. Work hard, make money, stay within the law and don't be flashy. That's all.

There is a big Urban/Rural divide though, as in Culchies (rural, GAA playing, farmers), and Urban (townies, soccer, and the Dubliners - Dubs are a breed apart!). Great country altogether.

Im up on the north coast and there's a bit of snobbiness and keeping up with the jones but I was shocked by how prominent class was when I went to uni (One of the oxbridge reject unis lol) and during my time in london.

My experience is there is a little more snobbiness about being an old family in the town, a least 4 generations or youre a blow in. Also a lot around your standing in church. Or at least that was my experience growing up, I think it is changing to be a more standard wealth divide. Its also different in Belfast.

There is absolutely social class in Ireland, but it has traditionally been a less stratified class system.

There wasn't really an industrial revolution, apart from in parts of NI, and most of Ireland was overwhelmingly rural and agricultural until comparatively recently, so the big divide was 'strong farmer'/'small farmer'/landless labourer, and various small town business gradations, plus the social status accorded to clergy/religious (becoming a priest was a way of gaining class power, and there were class divides within religious orders, even within individual convents, between choir nuns who brought a dowry and the ones who didn't and were stuck with the domestic work), rather than WC/MC as developed in, say, England, in the 19thc.

And of course the native Irish aristocracy were eradicated or fled the country in the 17thc, so what was left was largely the imported Anglo-Irish, rewarded by Cromwell or the Crown, and owning the majority of Irish land until the Land Acts in the late 19thc and independence.

I would say (having lived in England for years) that it's still less stratified, and that class is less dependent on class shibboleths like specific words than in England, and schools are in general far more socially mixed (there are very few private schools compared to England).

I'm from a very poor WC background, as is DH, but we got out through education and when we came back from living abroad, we were prosperous professionals, now living in an 'old money' part of the city. However, it would take two questions for either of us to be 'placed' in class terms -- where are you from? and where did you go to school? My part of the city is notorious for poverty and petty crime, and my school was likewise notorious for truancy, drinking and a high rate of girls dropping out pregnant (80s). It's now a much more genteel school.

It's a young country, still coming to terms with the boom and bust of the Tiger, comparative prosperity, and being somewhere people want to immigrate to. A lot will probably change in the next ten years again.

Oh, and being Irish in England when I first moved there, meant I was automatically considered WC.

Nobody has the same obsession with class as the English. And Northern Ireland is part of the UK. It is not exactly the same as the Republic. It's a different country.

There are of course class differences in the Republic (I've not lived in NI so can't comment), but nowhere near the myriad of signifiers that people seem to obsess over in England.

This is spot on.

There isn't a thing about using certain words, but there is a different accent in every county and least and there is usually a posher version of that accent.

Being snobby about "new money" or "newly middle class" doesn't is not a thing either, many people prospered relatively recently. It's normal in my husband's workplace (big multinational - lots of well paid folk) for the Irish people to have parents who were farmers. People don't really talk about class.

I read an interesting stat that 68% of people considered themselves part of middle Ireland.

My UK IL were pretty surprised at the prosperity of my family and friends in a small seaside village . Everyone had self build houses , no manual labourers or factory workers in the particular mix. Local businesses or office workers.

Think maybe they were expecting poor Irish Catholics just getting by. Absolutely shocked at the expensive wedding gifts and money that neighbours dropped in . And then the cash gifts at weddings ! Suddenly my MIL snobbish ( and unjustified) pretensions were totally overwhelmed and she never tried it again with me .

Yes, no one's that many generations off the land.

And the other big social difference between Ireland and England is a completely different attitude to emigration.

It is simpler in some ways. Not spectacularly complicated like England. For starters , as Nuala O Faoláin noted , what should be our Upper Class , the 1% old Protestant Ascendancy , are not considered/ do not consider themselves as Irish .
That leaves the Catholic bourgeoisie - big farmers , business ppl etc - and us plebs rural and urban. There is no 'native Irish Upper class to speak of. They all fled to Europe in the 17th / 18th century. And money gets you into the bourgeoisie quick enough. So it's more like the USA in some ways.

But though we lack a formal class set up we make up for it by having lots of snobbery instead.
I can't speak for Northern Ireland of course. There are other factors at play There.

It’s totally different here. It’s hard to even say how or why…
But I think the British class system is a very unique thing.

By here, I mean the Republic of Ireland.
NI maybe mirrors the British class system, but would have a lot of other layers that are unique to them. Obviously.

Abhannmor has described it exactly.

Social class is much less important in Ireland than in UK.
And I think social mobility is a lot easier too.
Being friendly, generous, hardworking etc is much more important than how you speak, the words you use or where you went to school.
There are very few private schools, most kids from an area go to school together. There is usually an academic school and a more practical/technical secondary school in each area. Often there are single sex schools but this is changing to more mixed schools.
In the past the church was very important but not so much with the younger generation.
Dublin is a bit different. Most people are fairly normal but there are good and bad areas. Where you live and your accent are easier markers there.
Being down to earth is very important. You don't want to have notions! People tend to downplay their achievements, wealth etc

Cherryvalley is in East Belfast. I think leafy South Belfasters would get on ok with the Cherryvelley set.
Munster rugby especially Limerick is less class based.

I’m Irish but live in the UK. One thing I’ve noticed (at least in my area) is that farming is totally different - farms are much bigger and the land is often owned by very wealthy people who run it like a big business or lease it to others. A bit like it was in Ireland before independence! I don’t think there were any farming families at my kids school and we are surrounded by countryside.

I don't think there is any social class in Ireland. In the school my daughter attends it's very mixed, all nationalities, backgrounds & religions. All muddle along well. It's the same in my workplace. We don't really have a landed gentry or any aristocratic types in Ireland, no royal family etc...

It's completely different. In NI it's basically tied to money 100%. In GB it's "bloodline" (gross). I'm not a fan of class systems either way, but at least in NI it's possible to change your class.

I've never lived in GB, but based on general media and MN in particular the class system is much more wealth based here (both sides of the border) than in GB.

You can buy/earn your way to a higher class by having the fancy house, nice holidays, and that's fine. No snide side eyes about what you call the living room or the toilet.

Schools are pretty mixed, there are very few private schools and most of them are clustered in South County Dublin - but even the private schools are a lot cheaper than GB (my old school has fees of €3k per annum) so even the private schools are much more socially mixed. I went to a state primary and private secondary (very normal where I grew up) and was at school with girls who had a swimming pool at home and also with girls from settled traveler families who hardly had a penny.

Yes, I found that fascinating when I lived in rural England -- that many farmers didn't own their land, but leased it from big landowners. When I stayed with my BIL and SIL in Yorkshire, the village they lived on the edge of was still very much an estate village, with the vast majority of the houses 'tied' to employment on the estate (including theirs, which had been the gamekeeper's, and Sir Hugh Someone used to drop off game from shoots to people (so that when, once, I was staying there alone, he encountered a bolshie Irish vegetarian who said 'No, thanks', apparently to his unconcealed astonishment).

@Rainbowbrite5 there is absolutely social class in Ireland, it's just less stratified, and we burned out the majority of the Ascendancy hereabouts in the 1920s, so there's no real UC by 'bloodline' as a pp said.

And yes, schools being very mixed is key.