For people who have live/lived abroad what differences do you find between Irish and

Xavi6

Australians drink as nuch, if not more, than the Irish.

They are quite racist, though generally very friendly and welcoming, once you're white I guess.

Sense of humour isn't a patch on ours, though no ones' really is.

They have real tans. None of that out of a bottle crap or streaks.

Taltos

Iolar wrote: »

What did Hungarians do to ya?:pac: nem jo!

Wrecked my head
Nice bunch - but like anywhere - some real prats - unlucky to be landed in a group of them for a while.

galwayrush

Just back from a few days in Oxford.
On refusing a down and out some money because i didn't have any on me at the time,
In Oxford......No problem Sir, you have a nice day
In Galway.....**** off ya ****.

Tom65

Sweden is pretty much the perfect country, apart from two things: the people and the weather. The winter here lasts from November until last week, and none of that "bit of rain there" winter. Snow/ice always on the ground, and generally -5 degrees at the warmest.

The people are interesting here. They're very helpful, and nice, but really withdrawn. I was told they would be like that, and once you got to know them they'd be great, but that's a lie. I've gotten used to it now.

Every thing regarding amenities is great here though. Off hand, I can think of 10 football pitches, 5 playgrounds, two big parks, a swimming pool, ice rink, and basketball court all within a 5 minute walk. None of them are ever vandalised and used as a sport to go drinking. Speaking of, I've never been threatened here at all (yet anyway). And I supposedly live in the dodgy area.

To sum up: I think it's a double-edged sword: the people here aren't as friendly as people in Ireland, but people in Ireland (not everyone, obviously) can be more violent. Also, high tax welfare state systems are brilliant

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

Electric Sheep

prinz wrote: »

She's right the irish are more insular, self obsessed, backward and generally some of the least friendly and welcoming people I've come across.

That's as an Irish person who has lived and worked abroad in a number of countries.

Have to agree - as another Irish person who has lived and worked abroad in several coutries. It often seems that Irish people are superficially friendly, but just waiting to talk behind your back in a very unfriendly way.

Another trait is the tendency to "talk in circles" and use implication and innuendo rather than just come straight out and say what they mean. Contrast this to, say, Israel, where people tend to say exactly what they mean in a very direct manner. It can be disconcerting if you are not used to it;)

Darkbloom

Xavi6 wrote: »

They have real tans. None of that out of a bottle crap or streaks.

And in a couple of decades they'll look like this:
http://www.spray-tan-byron-bay.com/images/sundamagedskin.jpg

gary the great

Russia, St petersburg -

Young people are as friendly and as funny as irish methinks.
But the buracracy in that place is unreal, everythign system is incredibly inefficent.
They are so patient to, they will wait in queues for hours without moaning.
They are very lazy and will not rush themselves when working.
Feel they have to prove something to you a lot of the time.
They drink way more than irish.


England:
The moaniest nation of people ive ever come across, they never stop.
A lot of them want something for nothing.
Funny enough, but not as much as Irish.
A lot of know it alls.

Milkey Bar Kid

I was living in Germany for a good few years and plan to go back
The one Differance between the two countries is that in any Major city in Germany could walk down the main street by yourself at 2 in the morning and feel safe . Try doing that in any city in ireland .Alot of irish people think you have a problem with them if you catch their eye

Darkbloom

gary the great wrote: »

Russia, St petersburg -

Young people are as friendly and as funny as irish methinks.
But the buracracy in that place is unreal, everythign system is incredibly inefficent.
They are so patient to, they will wait in queues for hours without moaning.
They are very lazy and will not rush themselves when working.
Feel they have to prove something to you a lot of the time.
They drink way more than irish.

You left out the sharp-elbowed auld wans who'll viciously force their way through crowds, almost pushing you into traffic.

luckylucky

galwayrush wrote: »

Just back from a few days in Oxford.
On refusing a down and out some money because i didn't have any on me at the time,
In Oxford......No problem Sir, you have a nice day
In Galway.....**** off ya ****.

The guy from Galway obviously just knew you better. :P

Hazys

I live in Cambridge in Boston and its nothing like the stereotypes people expect from America. I live in the middle between Harvard and MIT.

You don’t get the image of very fat Americans as the main supermarkets are Wholefoods and Trader Joes which sell all organic foods and crap (just give me food I can just throw into oven). They have great facilities in the area, there are several soccer, baseball pitches, basketball courts, playgrounds and parks all within 10 mins walk of my house.

You also don’t get the uneducated, uncultured Americans, everyday I walk home from the T, I walk past art galleries, open jazz sessions, spice shops, book shops full of hippies. The T (subway) all the advertisements are for free yoga classes, language classes, colleges etc.

The main square I live on has no franchises only home grown businesses, so I see very little of corporate America in my neighbourhood. My area has many different ethnic shops and restaurants, my area is considered little Portugal.

Nightouts are pretty good too. There are some great Irish pubs, one even serves a half decent pint of Guinness. The main bars/clubs vary massively in type and none play mainstream music.

Cambridge has a pretty cool vibe off it, nothing like stereotypical America. Its so different to what you get back home. America is a vast country with different cultures and traditions so I do find it funny when people try to pick out the typical American. Overall i find Americans very friendly and very chatty.

live2thewire

Milkey Bar Kid wrote: »

I was living in Germany for a good few years and plan to go back
The one Differance between the two countries is that in any Major city in Germany could walk down the main street by yourself at 2 in the morning and feel safe . Try doing that in any city in ireland .Alot of irish people think you have a problem with them if you catch their eye

obviously you havent heard of the racist attacks in berlin. berlin is well dodgy. having said that i never felt in danger but ive never felt in danger on any main street in dublin either.

m@cc@

Milkey Bar Kid wrote: »

The one Differance between the two countries is that in any Major city in Germany could walk down the main street by yourself at 2 in the morning and feel safe .

The same in the Netherlands.

luckylucky

m@cc@ wrote: »

The same in the Netherlands.

Really! I have a few dutch friends out here. They are always going on about how holland is getting so violent. A few months ago one of their sons - got set upon by a few guys just for fun and ended up with a smashed up jaw, just a couple of weeks ago the same thing almost happened to him again but he saw it coming and ran off. He lives in Utrecht also fyi.

m@cc@

luckylucky wrote: »

Really! I have a few dutch friends out here. They are always going on about how holland is getting so violent. A few months ago one of their sons - got set upon by a few guys just for fun and ended up with a smashed up jaw, just a couple of weeks ago the same thing almost happened to him again but he saw it coming and ran off. He lives in Utrecht also fyi.

The problem is that that it used to be extremely safe in the Netherlands and safety has definitely decreased. It's still easily safer on nights out here, 10 mins in any bar will tell you that. I've lived here 10 months and not once, not once seen a fight break out.

Mr. Frost

Can't Irish people stop talking about themselves for 5 minutes? :rolleyes:

I know it's an boards.IE and all but I find Irish people a tad narcissistic.

m@cc@

Mr. Frost wrote: »

Can't Irish people stop talking about themselves for 5 minutes? :rolleyes:

I know it's an boards.IE and all but I find Irish people a tad narcissistic.

Look up narcissistic in dictionary. Self-obsessed - maybe.

triple-M

I've lived in the south of holland (noord brabant) and found dutch people in general to be alot more intellegent and future focused than the irish almost all the young people i knew there in their 20s had their own house or were saving like mad to get one,but on the other hand the dutch sense of humour is very dry and its near impossible to get them to laugh at a joke and they were a wee bit stuck up ,but thats just my opinion of people in one particular town,from a safety point of view i think holland is safer in general but then again i walked through Hoog Catharijne(shopping centre in utrecht) while waiting on a train one night and almost got stabbed and forced to buy drugs in the space of 5 mins

m@cc@

triple-M wrote: »

I've lived in the south of holland (noord brabant) and found dutch people to be alot more intellegent and future focused than the irish almost all the young people i knew there in their 20s had their own house or were saving like mad to get one,but on the other hand the dutch sense of humour is very dry and its near impossible to get them to laugh at a joke and there a wee bit stuck up and not very welcoming to newcomers,but thats just my opinion of people in one town

I'd agree with most of that, apart from the intelligence part.

triple-M

m@cc@ wrote: »

I'd agree with most of that, apart from the intelligence part.

fair for me to say plenty of smart irish people i guess it varies by areai suppose thats und

luckylucky

triple-M wrote: »

I probably shouldnt say "they" but "we" because I was born there I suppose it varies on the area, I guess in an upper middle class area of Dublin people would be thinking ahead too and would have a good education

FYP - wasn't really a good advertisement for the intelligent Dutch now was it .

Anyway... I think the Dutch are meant to have one of the highest average IQs in Europe, so you might have a point. But that's just an average of course.

The Dutch sense of humour is drier alright, maybe it's just the small community of ex-pats out here but I find they have a good sense of humour nonetheless.

irish_bob

Darkbloom wrote: »

You left out the sharp-elbowed auld wans who'll viciously force their way through crowds, almost pushing you into traffic.

all oul wans are like that in eastern europe , budapest ( unfriendliest city ive ever been to ) is a prime example

so , us irish , smoeone said were self obsessed , i think we are certanly obsessed with what others think of us , be it with our neighbours or foreigners or how we are potrayed in movies tv etc , single mindedness is more common abroad , being different is not easy in ireland , if your not a sheep , your a weirdo here
speaking your mind is frowned upon in ireland and complaining is a big no no , complaining about bad service is much more common abroad , more than once in this country , i complained about shabby service in stores , on more than one occasion , the customers behind me in the quee actually started attacking me for complaning to the store service providers ,
irish people are on average much nosier than other nations , especially outside dublin where the most trivial of news is gossip worthy
someone said we are superficially friendly , many foreigners have pointed this out to me , they commented on how everyone here is so warm and frindly to them upon 1st meeting ( no way guarded ) but how it never goes much further than this , i told them thats how irish people are , some of who i would call friends , people ive know for over 10 years , ive never had a really deep conversation with , this is especially true with people outside dublin,
other nations , the people tend to be guarded at 1st but when youve earned their trust ,they are much more open with you than we are , we are i think quite a shallow people although being deep and meaningfull is painfully over rated IMO

another major difference with other nationalities is thier disadain for littering , the single thing i most dislike about my country is the amount of litter that is tossed around , the countryside is a disgrace


that being said , i still love ireland and couldnt see myself living anywhere else permanently

asdasd

someone said we are superficially friendly , many foreigners have pointed this out to me , they commented on how everyone here is so warm and frindly to them upon 1st meeting ( no way guarded ) but how it never goes much further than this , i told them thats how irish people are

other nations , the people tend to be guarded at 1st but when youve earned their trust ,they are much more open with you than we are

By definition a friendly person, or nation, is superficially friendly. Noone wants the lifestory from the guy at the bus stop, or the shopkeeper, or expect deep intimacy in a few minutes on a bus; but a smile or a nod or a conversation about the weather.

Litterring is correct though. We are atrocious on that.

prinz

asdasd wrote: »

Since we are neither English, nor American that doesn't hold.

Thanks for proving the point about self-obsession.Did you even read the post before you jumped in to say the above? :rolleyes:. The point was about our ability to appreciate the language and cultures of others.Even though a huge proportion of foreign songs are sung in English, they still never reach the airwaves here. One example I always use is the German band Reamonn, lead singer Rea Garvey i think it is.... native of Listowel afaik, massive in Germany, literally selling millions of records... yet in Ireland?? Unheard of.

asdasd wrote: »

In no way are we more "insular" than either the Americans, or the British.

The fact that you have to measure and compare again, just illustrates the point. Everything in Ireland gets turned into a competition, looking at other countries and what they're doing, what they did to us in the past etc. The whole anti-British resentment is another example. It's about time we as a people got the hell over it.Compared to what other countries have gone through it was nothing.

Another poster mentioned safety. Spot on. Have had nights out in many European countries and I've never felt as unsafe as right here in Dublin. Just recently had a beer bottle thrown at me as I got off the nitelink. Only that the bus driver saw it coming and shouted at me it probably would've hit me on the head. Compared to another occasion I missed my stop on the subway one night and walked for an hour through Harlem, New York. Got nothing but goodnight wishes by everybody I passed. Again early morning about 5 am I had gotten lost after a nightclub in a city in Belgium, got stopped by a postman, he took me on his rounds and dropped me off home to the door.

I like the German straight forward approach. No bullsh*t, no small talk for the sake of it.If you befriend people there you can depend on them for pretty much anything. If someone says 2 pm, they mean 2 pm, not 2.30. The public transport is on time, the health systems work, the people there respect authority ( especially their police forces ).

They are not happy to settle for second best like we are here.If you pay for X you better get it.If the timetable says Y you can bet your life on it.

Plus they put a lot more effort into learning and education than we do here. Its not unusual for young people to talk about books, philosophy, art over there.

The list is endless really.As for the classic 'if you don't like it leave' come back.......... I will be soon.Looking forward to it tbh.

asdasd

Thanks for proving the point about self-obsession.Did you even read the post before you jumped in to say the above? . The point was about our ability to appreciate the language ad cultures of others

Dimmest post ever. You seem to think that we are English, or American. Your original post suggested that Croatians knew a lot of Irish culture, but we "only" knew English, or American culture. News to you - we are not American, or English.

The fact that you have to measure and compare again, just illustrates the point. Everything in Ireland gets turned into a competition, looking at other countries and what they're doing, what they did to us in the past etc. The whole anti-British resentment is another example. It's about time we as a people got the hell over it.Compared to what other countries have gone through it was nothing.

Second dimmest post ever. This thread is about comparisons: it is about comparing Ireland with places we have lived. There is no way to do that without referencing the culture of those places. I live in England, and have in America. Clearly Americans know less about the world than Irish people. many cannot find Europe on a map. English people know nothing about Ireland, and less about France. About Germany they know they won a war.

And then despite posting the second dimmest post - the one about how it is somehow wrong for us to compare against other cultures, off you go and do exactly that.

Plus they put a lot more effort into learning and education than we do here. Its not unusual for young people to talk about books, philosophy, art over there.

Thats probably nonsense ( although I cant speak for the Germans, the Americans and English are in the general badly educated), but more to the point it is comparing us with others, the exact thing you are opposed to. Clearly you are only opposed to comparing Ireland with other countries if there is any defence of Ireland. Criticism is ok, and in fact that is the sleeven attitude common to Irish. That is what we are expert at.

And that attitude is itself parochial. Live abroad. It aint all that different.

Crumble Froo

living in nz, and find the kiwis to have a similar sort of sense of humour, but you do have to tone it down a bit... where we say things in jest and it gets taken in jest.. people here can start getting defensive...

other than that, any sort of complaining, moaning or begrudging just isn't done. "Be staunch, walk tall" is something i've seen on heaps of tshirts, usually on kids, and "harden up" is the national phrase.

just about the only time i see/hear the word 'recession' is on boards, and kiwis have been in recession for longer than the irish.

live2thewire

Thanks for proving the point about self-obsession.Did you even read the post before you jumped in to say the above? :rolleyes:. The point was about our ability to appreciate the language and cultures of others.Even though a huge proportion of foreign songs are sung in English, they still never reach the airwaves here. One example I always use is the German band Reamonn, lead singer Rea Garvey i think it is.... native of Listowel afaik, massive in Germany, literally selling millions of records... yet in Ireland?? Unheard of.

It was me who mentioned Croatians interest in Irish culture, however we live in an Americanised world...sadly. Look at the german charts and see who tops them. Look at the French. Look at the British.

The fact that you have to measure and compare again, just illustrates the point. Everything in Ireland gets turned into a competition, looking at other countries and what they're doing, what they did to us in the past etc. The whole anti-British resentment is another example. It's about time we as a people got the hell over it.Compared to what other countries have gone through it was nothing.

lol when i hear that sort of revisionist ****e i know the person has some complex going on.

especially when you just posted this:

The fact that you have to measure and compare again

Another poster mentioned safety. Spot on. Have had nights out in many European countries and I've never felt as unsafe as right here in Dublin.

I'd be suprised if Dublin was by European standards that dangerous a city.

I had gotten lost after a nightclub in a city in Belgium, got stopped by a postman, he took me on his rounds and dropped me off home to the door.

I reckon ya got lucky, same could happen in Ireland.

The people there respect authority ( especially their police forces ).

How about in east berlin?

*not trying to stereotype east berliners but it does have a rep*

Plus they put a lot more effort into learning and education than we do here. Its not unusual for young people to talk about books, philosophy, art over there.

Teenagers are the same everywhere. This seems a bit idealistic and some american stereotype of the 'sophisticated european'

prinz

asdasd wrote: »

Dimmest post ever. You seem to think that we are English, or American. Your original post suggested that Croatians knew a lot of Irish culture, but we "only" knew English, or American culture. News to you - we are not American, or English.

Wtf? The poster never said we were.

Funny any Americans I have met have been very well educated.Yes I was talking about continental Europe, where I have lived in particular Germany, France and Belgium.

The point of the thread was to point out the differences as we saw them NOT a defense of Ireland. Going on the defensive about faults everyone can plainly see is self-obsession.

live2thewire

Actually in regards to being a dangerous city, Dublin actually is.

London is the most dangerous capital in the European Union, a survey on crime found. Amsterdam, Dublin, Belfast and Copenhagen were the next most dangerous cities after London in what the researchers called ``common crime'' such as car theft, pickpocketing, burglary and including threatened assaults and ``offensive behavior.''