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.

I don't think that's how West Brit is used these days though, like I said I've been described as such on here, directly once and indirectly loads of times. It seems to just mean "Dublin" these days.

And I most definitely am not a ROCK type, how dare you.

West Brit doesn't mean Dublin to me. You do sound a bit ROCKy @BarbaraHoward 😉

What is the difference between an Ursuline and Presentation convent @DeanElderberry? I don't get that.

all the women she interacted with were upper middle class English women from very different backgrounds to her essentially rural upper servant class upbringing.
Never heard of upper servant class either...I really do not like this class thing or how Irish people are viewed in GB.

What is the difference between an Ursuline and Presentation convent ? I don't get that.

In the town concerned the Ursulines were the 'posh' school, the Pres the 'ordinary' one. Not as markedly posh as Sacred Heart, but still a little special.

Mercy are the most ordinary, on a par with the Christian brothers. Nell McCafferty and Edna O'Brien were both Mercy girls (as of course are the Derry Girls) - not posh despite the worst efforts of a few of the nuns.

I'm in Australia and ufortunately we can't get any further away from having to think about this BS

Oh right, I didn't know that. I'm from a smallish town so there was no choice in the type of nun or brother you got anyway 😁

I'm sure there's a class structure in Australia too!

All nations and societies have pockets of privilege and systems for preserving it. If you are not aware of it, that is because you are a net beneficiary, sufficiently privileged not to have suffered from the effects of it yourself, and sufficiently complacent to not care about its effects on others.

@BarbaraHoward well I'm in agreement they are completely wrong.

West Brits and SoCoDu types merely overlap in the Venn diagram when the west Brit lives in Dublin.

I think the major difference in Ireland is the numbers of these people. They are just very small. Apparently Ireland has one of the lowest percentage of children in private school. That coupled with a good education system and high rates of third level creates a large middle.

There is definitely a class system but it's just not the same. I can't ever imagine people like some of the Tory MPs getting into power here. In the UK there are people who some seem to think are their "betters"

dunno, I had an impoverished aunt who voted for Charlie Haughey because he had horses and nice suits.

to be fair to her, she was in and out of St Brendan's hospital fairly regularly

Pantofolaio Most of us are only one generation from fairly humble backgrounds.

Good point. A few of us were having a laugh recently 'doing' a mock Irish version of 'Who Do You Think You Are', where every single programme ends up in a wee cabin on a scrabby field, or two if you were lucky - which is exactly where our family genealogies led us, only the counties were different

Obviously there are Irish families with more privileged histories, or whose poverty was urban rather than rural, but historically, being catholic in Ireland was generally speaking a marker of being 'lower class', and that hung around well into the 1950s, even at middle class level. My elders remembered towns having a Protestant tennis and golf club, and a Catholic tennis and golf club, which would have been set up because the Protestant clubs wouldn't let Catholics in - even the middle class or well-to-do Catholics.

rural upper servant class

This is not a thing ?? She was probably like everyone else if she came from a small rural town.

The problem with looking at older Irish people living in the UK and judging the class system by them is that particularly in the past, but even now, some people in the UK see Irish people as "common" because of how we say and do things. This lead to people getting notions and putting on airs and graces in a desperate attempt to redefine themselves.

Many many decades ago when I happened into London, I made connections with families whose sons had been to Ampleforth and Downside. Largely of Irish descent and still with houses in Ireland, as well as beautiful homes in prime SW London.

Never have I come across a more hierarchical and I guess rather snobby bunch at any other time in my life. They weren't that intellectually bright either although there were one or two exceptions.

Yes but we're not obsessed with it

as I said, that is a mark of your privileged status

I'd disagree with that. You don't know my background.
Are you familiar with day to day life in Australia?

The West Brit moniker is quite a convenient othering to pretend there’s no class - they aren’t really Irish people, they’re fake!

My Irish Granny judged people on the most tenuous things. Like what time they had they had all their curtains open by in the morning.

She once pronounced my sisters then boyfriend as 'harmless'. My very English DH couldn't understand why my sister was so offended. Irish snobbery is more subtle in some ways, and everything had to be down played in case of notions.

No. I've met Australians (was talking to some of them about aspects of this less than a week ago), watched television, watched films, read books, read news articles. It is obviously as riddled with privilege as every other society. The proportion of schoolchildren going to private schools is twice that in Ireland (a scandal that we have them at all imo). You have an honours system and a royal family. If you can't see it, that's because you choose not to, not because it isn't there.

I genuinely feel quite warm to the Irish snobbery because I feel its mostly based on character and behaviour. Rather than the English bloodlines or Australia where its based entirely on wealth and image which seems so sad and lacking.

I've worked for a long time in the one the most diverse and socially deprived areas in my state.
I've volunteered with the homeless.
So, don't tell me I don't understand my privilege.
Maybe check your own before labelling others

So you're 'obsessed' with it too!

why did you throw rocks at the rest of us then?

Not obsessed at all.
Just pointing out a few facts in response to your incorrect statements about mr

You're a bit sensitive if you feel I was throwing rocks
I won't waste any more of my time engaging with you

Never heard of upper servant class either...I really do not like this class thing or how Irish people are viewed in GB.

My grandfather was head stud groom from 1915-1960 (ish) at a top racing stable owned by an old Anglo-Irish family - a very decent family, as it happens.

From the POV of his employers, he was “servant class”, though respected and well treated as an individual. In societal terms, however, he was respectable and respected middle-class, able to afford send his children away to school. It was an odd hybrid sort of status, probably unique to its time and place.

Why did you feel obliged to post on this thread and tell us that you were superior for not 'having to' think about this BS and accuse us of being obsessed with it?

One thread, three pages. I've seen longer and more obsessed threads about saucepans. Or should Irish people just not think about how our society functions?