Irish manners

luckat

It used to be a cliche that Irish people had beautiful manners.

The theory (a fine piece of snobbery) was that because so many people were descended from aristocrats dispossessed during the various Plantations, aristocratic courtesy was the norm even among peasants in tumbledown thatched cottages, etc...

But in the last few years Irish people seem to have discarded this courtesy and become loutish and ill-mannered. I even hear eastern Europeans commenting on it.

Why has this happened, and can it be reversed?

FlutterinBantam

Short answer...money.

Every chav in the country now has money or can borrow it.
Everything is now being "dumbed down".Travel is now in the reach of all whereas before it was only the professional classes who travelled extensively.

Knowledge is also available ,how many time were you sitting in a pub listening to people telling how they booked their flights to Kuala Lumpur and Vietnam with a stop for three days in Dubai on the internet,and you know they couldn't spell
"character" if you asked them to write it down.

Someone doesn't know something, Google it or look it up on Wikipedia.

The barrier of money/knowledge and status is breaking down and the lines are blurring.

This gives the people on the bottom of the heap a "fook you" attitude,and is why they no longer feel they have to be nice to anyone.

If i lose my job,i will get another one to-morrow,so fook the customer,I couldnt be arsed.

Thats it in a nutshell son... no charge:D

Wibbs

FlutterinBantam wrote:

Thats it in a nutshell son... no charge:D

luckat

I've heard the 'money' theory before, but I don't (as it were) buy it.

I spend the odd holiday in Japan, which had the Celtic Tiger before Ireland, and people there have spectacularly lovely manners.

And I've been in various European countries where they're wealthy - the Netherlands, for instance - and seen beautiful behaviour.

I honestly don't think it's money. I just don't know what it is.

Incidentally, how would people rate their own manners - let's say, going on your behaviour all day today?

FlutterinBantam

The difference is those countries are USED to wealth.

We are not, and are suffering the consequences

Raekwon

I think FlutterinBantam has hit the nail on the head with the fact that Irish are not used to wealth, hence the change in our manners.

IMO money breeds arrogance and in turn arrogance breeds ignorance.

But I still think that our manners (even through they are in an obvious downward spiral) are still not as bad as some other countries. For example, since you mentioned that eastern European have commented on it, I think they should seriously take a look in the mirror. I've been to Poland & Slovakia and peoples manners over there are way worse then what I have experienced on this island.

luckat

No, no, Japan wasn't used to wealth. Japanese people were really poor until the 1960s, and their rise from poverty was much more extreme than ours.

tba

Ah **** manners

Hail 2 Da Chimp

Yup manners are over rated anyway...

luckat

tba wrote:

Ah **** manners

Funny all right - but good manners make life a lot nicer for everyone.

Plissken1

luckat wrote:

It used to be a cliche that Irish people had beautiful manners.

The theory (a fine piece of snobbery) was that because so many people were descended from aristocrats dispossessed during the various Plantations, aristocratic courtesy was the norm even among peasants in tumbledown thatched cottages, etc...

But in the last few years Irish people seem to have discarded this courtesy and become loutish and ill-mannered. I even hear eastern Europeans commenting on it.

Why has this happened, and can it be reversed?

I dont think we are the worst, but its certainly not getting better, thats for sure. We are basically a suburb of the UK, I have witnessed this same thing happen over there in the 90's. The Chav's are taking over, the same will happen here, Like them or not, we always mirror changes in the UK, it just take a few more years to hit here no matter what change or fad it is, we always copy it.

FlutterinBantam

luckat wrote:

Funny all right - but good manners make life a lot nicer for everyone.

Thats the nub of the problem.

Educating the people who do not have manners to accept that simple axiom!!!

off you go now;)

ScumLord

Big citys kill manners. I'd say Dublin is the worst for it.

Dyr

luckat wrote:

But in the last few years Irish people seem to have discarded this courtesy and become loutish and ill-mannered. I even hear eastern Europeans commenting on it.

What do they say to you? "zez irish kettles, ze ur so black, unlike us soviet pots" :rolleyes:

ignorantest shower of f***rs on this island are the sandwich serving chinese. It was scientifically proven by nine out of ten cats i heard

Archeron

An awful lot of this is down to a persons own approach as well.
I would generally be polite, and quite open and friendly, and I find that in 90% of cases, that is always returned. A nod or a smile to a stranger will almost always result in the same being returned, and the slightest exchange between people, be that in a bus, tram, in a restaurant, shop, whatever will result in a bit of friendly banter. I thought this just the other day when I had an exchange between an elderly couple on the luas, and we had a joke while standing by the doors, and the same can be said for many examples in Dublin over the course of that day.
Irish manners are alive and well, you just have to look a little bit harder for them sometimes, but if people walk around with the preconceived opinion that everyone else is rude and that manners are dead, then its hardly surprising that thats how they'll find things. Personally I still find the vast majority of people I meet (both Irish and foreign national) to be nice genuine people; just sometimes it takes an effort on one of both parts to see it.

FlutterinBantam

You obviously never took a walk around Northside Shopping centre;)

Dyr

I doubt you did either, been driven past it in your trap doesnt count

peasant

It's not money, it's time ...or rather lack thereof.

Everybody's in a rush now, subsequently everybody wants to bully their way to the front of the queue ...and if there's no queue, they'll bully you anyway.

No time ...(and a very over-inflated sense of self-importance)

KTRIC

FlutterinBantam wrote:

You obviously never took a walk around Northside Shopping centre;)

Or the Square in Tallaght.

HelterSkelter

What is a chav? Why are you using Brit terms?

KTRIC

peasant wrote:

and a very over-inflated sense of self-importance

Thats more or less it in a nutshell.

FlutterinBantam

Bambi wrote:

I doubt you did either, been driven past it in your trap doesnt count

You see? ..there's the perfect example. Poster refuses to accept the facts and tries to insult the person who states the facts.

HelterSkelter

KTRIC wrote:

Or the Square in Tallaght.

I took a walk around the Square in Tallaght recently and didn't see anything wrong. The people in the shops were as polite as anywhere else I have shopped.

HelterSkelter

FlutterinBantam wrote:

You see? ..there's the perfect example. Poster refuses to accept the facts and tries to insult the person who states the facts.

They are not "facts" unless you have proved something, which you have not done so far.

KTRIC

HelterSkelter wrote:

I took a walk around the Square in Tallaght recently and didn't see anything wrong. The people in the shops were as polite as anywhere else I have shopped.

Did you have your eyes closed ??

HelterSkelter

KTRIC wrote:

Did you have your eyes closed ??

My eyes closed? What are you talking about? The OP is talking about manners. I was in Easons, the people working there were very polite and friendly, they had manners. Talked to the person at the customer info desk, she was very polite also.

What happened to you in the Square? Tell us about it.

Drax

HelterSkelter wrote:

What is a chav? Why are you using Brit terms?

Helter - you must be the only person left in Ireland who doesn't know what a chav is!

Muggy Dev

peasant wrote:

It's not money, it's time ...or rather lack thereof.

These are both elements for sure but to have manners in the first instance you must be taught them by your parents. I believe this is the main point of breakdown here.

A recent article in the Independent (sorry I don't have the link) by David Coleman of "Families in Trouble" fame warned of a generation of delinquents if many Irish parents fail to address the serious shortcomings in the way they raise their children.His weekly show offers a chilling insight into family dysfunction which but for the program itself,would go unseen.

HelterSkelter

Drax wrote:

Helter - you must be the only person left in Ireland who doesn't know what a chav is!

I know what it is, I just refuse to use Brit terms like chav, twat or mum.

Drax

HelterSkelter wrote:

I know what it is, I just refuse to use Brit terms like chav, twat or mum.

So its like that then is it A 'Scoby', 'Gee' and 'Mammy' man....

KTRIC

HelterSkelter wrote:

My eyes closed? What are you talking about? The OP is talking about manners. I was in Easons, the people working there were very polite and friendly, they had manners. Talked to the person at the customer info desk, she was very polite also.

What happened to you in the Square? Tell us about it.

Sorry I wasn't refering to the staff in any of the shops, they all seem to be very polite, its the customers that you have to watch out for.

luckat

Archeron wrote:

An awful lot of this is down to a persons own approach as well. <snip>but if people walk around with the preconceived opinion that everyone else is rude and that manners are dead, then its hardly surprising that thats how they'll find things.

I'm just talking about what I see when I'm taking buses into town, walking around the streets, moving through shops. Consider me a ghost.

humanji

In fairness, have the Irish, as a people, ever been totally well mannered? Granted, I've lived in Dublin all my life, and as said before, you'll find a hell of a less manners in cities than you would in a small down, but I still think that peoples attitudes towards each other are still as bad as they always were (with added racism now, now that we have different colours to pick on :rolleyes: )

Plissken1

HelterSkelter wrote:

I know what it is, I just refuse to use Brit terms like chav, twat or mum.

Why do you speak English then ? :rolleyes:

Do you use Dublin slang ? because that is just copied from Cockney slang.

Biro

peasant wrote:

It's not money, it's time ...or rather lack thereof.

Everybody's in a rush now, subsequently everybody wants to bully their way to the front of the queue ...and if there's no queue, they'll bully you anyway.

No time ...(and a very over-inflated sense of self-importance)

Yes, but why are they in a rush, short of time and full of self-importance? Because of money.
When there was no money there was lots of time! Out in the country people had feck all money but would help out a neighbour with the hay if the rain was coming and general things like that. Now people tend to laugh if a farmer is caught out with the rain and say "Ah I'm too busy to worry about some other mans problems".

luckat

Plissken1 wrote:

Do you use Dublin slang ? because that is just copied from Cockney slang.

Mmmm, not altogether correct, Plissken. Take a look at Slanguage, the dictionary of Irish slang, and you may change your mind.

Crucifix

Money is getting a lot of bad press these days, so I just want to say; I think money is great. I love money.

WindSock

People in Dublin are afraid to open their mouths in case they get posted up on overheardindublin. Probably.
Rudeness has mostly got to do with overcrowding. Its very hard to find people that are nice when there are too many of them. On an individual basis though, most are lovely.

ferdi

i hate money....you work 40/50 years to gather money and then you die. barter ftw.

Stark

My manners have degraded somewhat since moving to Dublin. God I hate walking through Dublin city centre, ****ing people, get out of my ****ing way, no don't walk 3 abreast, don't ****ing stop to look at every ****ing postbox, don't spread out more when you see me trying to get past you while trying not to get sucked in by your gaping wide open mouth while you take up valuable space. No don't wear that ****ing yellow backpack! (Okay so maybe it's worst when the Spanish students come over).

Sangre

Manners used to be the exclusive domain of the rich and aristocrats but now that we've more money we've less manners? Don't really see how that one works...

Anyway, manners are completely culturally relative. You can't hop from country to country comparings manners because they vary so differently.

Also, thinking another country is more 'civilised and polite' because you went on a holiday there is retarded. Firstly you're only experiencing the service industry, who are paid to polite. Secondly, you're clearly a tourist and probably experience the tourist industry which usually live on good times and civility. Thirdly becuase you're on holiday you spend much less time there so you've much less chance of a bad experience (as oppossed to living in Ireland). Finally, people are usually nicer to tourists anyway. Comeback to me when you've lived there 6+ months.

Plissken1

luckat wrote:

Mmmm, not altogether correct, Plissken. Take a look at Slanguage, the dictionary of Irish slang, and you may change your mind.

Dublin rhyming slang ? nah its copied from the Cockneys. Why do you think they are called Jackeens.

Slutmonkey57b

Irish society has always thrived on hate - hate of the english, hate of the northerners, hate of the culchies, hate of the jackeens, hate of the scobes, hate of the southsiders, hate of the travellers, hate of the proddies. The Irish also love nothing more than to feel superior - again in comparison to those they choose to hate. The only difference is that money has levelled society and now all that hatred and massive superiority complex has to go somewhere. A lot of it goes (charmingly) against all those "bleedin forigners only here to take our jobs" but there's still plenty to spare for anyone you might be able to look down on - a fast food worker, a shop assistant, a salesman, a tradesman, whoever. Irish people were only ever polite to people who were the same as them - who were considered "worth it". Anybody considered different was always shunned.

Stark

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Blah blah blah I hate the Irish blah blah blah ****ing Irish hate everyone blah blah blah

Oh please...

luckat

All those who hate money are very welcome to send it to me - I'll use it for you so you don't have to. I like it.

Slutmonkey - ????

ChRoMe

I dont know if I would agree with how Slut Monkey worded his post but there is a grain of truth in between the lines. I do feel that Ireland is a place where a person requires a thick skin.

Im not sure what exactly is the cause of what appears to me as a kind of agressiveness in Irish people (granted when I lived in Ireland I never lived outside of Dublin). The theory being thrown about in regards to money I think is a contributing factor. As it was stated before Ireland never had money before and I defintely think that its in spoilt brat mode at the moment.

What I feel is the biggest factor in general Irish behaviour is that we have had a rough time over the past couple of hundred years. Stuff like the famine and the troubles to name a few. Ill be honest that I've had a general dislike for Ireland for a long time now. However I recall having a conversation with a friends american wife. She had studied a lot of Irish history while in college in the states. One night over a few beers I was having a good old moan about the general state of things. She really made me think by stating the view that "Ireland is in pretty good shape for a country that has a civil war in the last 100 years" I think its a valid point and goes towards helping to explain current attitudes in Ireland.

But the most accurate way I've heard Irish people described is "Everyone is walking around with a knife in their backs"

Disclaimer: This is all broad generalisations I know not everyone is a prick

Kazooie

This may be a slight generalisation but manners are still perfect in rural areas.
It's only in the cities that people seem to be losing interest in ' giving a sh*t' about others.

Stark

ChRoMe wrote:

What I feel is the biggest factor in general Irish behaviour is that we have had a rough time over the past couple of hundred years. Stuff like the famine and the troubles to name a few.

Oh the famine; I remember it well. The emotional scars remain with me to this day. Oh wait no...

I think rudeness is down to the stress of city living rather than anything else. The Celtic Tiger has meant for us that cities have grown at a faster rate than we can comfortably cope with and people are naturally aggressive when they have to compete for resources.

ChRoMe

Stark wrote:

Oh the famine; I remember it well. The emotional scars remain with me to this day. Oh wait no...

Dont be so short sighted when trying to understand Irish culture and attitudes.

FlutterinBantam

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Irish society has always thrived on hate - hate of the english, hate of the northerners, hate of the culchies, hate of the jackeens, hate of the scobes, hate of the southsiders, hate of the travellers, hate of the proddies. The Irish also love nothing more than to feel superior - again in comparison to those they choose to hate. The only difference is that money has levelled society and now all that hatred and massive superiority complex has to go somewhere. A lot of it goes (charmingly) against all those "bleedin forigners only here to take our jobs" but there's still plenty to spare for anyone you might be able to look down on - a fast food worker, a shop assistant, a salesman, a tradesman, whoever. Irish people were only ever polite to people who were the same as them - who were considered "worth it". Anybody considered different was always shunned.

One 'unded and eeeeeeeeighty!!!!!!

Absolutely 100% cast iron spot on Slut monkey

'break it up... break it up here...c'mon debate over ..its over..

You can all go home now.. c'mon out out out

Stark

Indeed, no more poverty gap. The divide between rich and poor has truly been bridged. Oh wait... No.