Can you guess where someone is from by their clothes, accent or activities?

Sadderday

I dont know if i'm in the right place but I am curious to others peoples views.

Before I start; I am from a council estate in a very disadvantaged area in North Dublin so not trying to be patronising towards anyone.

Something I have noticed though in recent years. I am now renting in a nice place and have to walk through an area that is mostly affordable housing to get home.

I've noticed some differences with the children in both areas. In the affordable housing for example; the children I pass daily are out in their pj's or school uniforms with no coats, tiny children are running around next to a main road, they always seem to be smashing bottles or something along those lines... when I get to the private housing - the children seem to be playing ball on the green with an adult watching from the gate.

I hate to say it but you can tell which children are from which area.

Anyone else noticed this ? Are you able to tell which of your neighbours grew up in a upmarket place or disadvantaged place ?

Realisitically, even by how they decorate their homes at Xmas ?

IS it something we all notice but out of politeness never mention?

Peregrinus

It gets mentioned all the time, surely? Modes of dress or behaviour are constantly used to evoke stereotypes about background, socioeconomic class, culture, values, etc.

The Corinthian

Congratulations, you've discovered the Irish class system.

It's very strong in Ireland, in that it is re-enforced through peer pressure using both snobbery and inverted snobbery. For example, just as in an 'upper class' school, you'll receive peer pressure to go onto college, in many 'lower class' schools you'll almost be ostracised if you do go, with accusations that you consider yourself 'better' than those around you.

Recently I found myself in a conversation with someone in Dalkey who seemed to want to size me up and see if I was PLU ('People Like Us'). What followed was a less than subtle interrogation on my educational background and what members of the 'top circles' in Irish society I personally knew. Where it comes to the opposite, inverted snobbery, end of the spectrum, my favourite expression is "have you swallowed a dictionary", when someone is trying to put down the fact that you have a larger vocabulary than they have.

So people tend to behave in the manner that they see around them but also, because of this snobbery and inverted snobbery, because also they're forced to conform to the modes of behaviour they see around them.

I've always found it quite bizarre in a country that officially prides itself on being classless it's in reality so ingrained and where, when you come down to it, even those 'top circles' are for the most part, two or three generations from a potato farm in Ballygospittlebackwards or trace themselves back to some plantation wave or other (16th century? Bah, bloody nouveau riche).

ShaggyQueen

I think you're overexaggerating it. You obviously get extremes at either end, but for the most part I don't think there's a real class system. Not in my experience anyway

The Corinthian

ShaggyQueen wrote: »

I think you're overexaggerating it. You obviously get extremes at either end, but for the most part I don't think there's a real class system. Not in my experience anyway

Depends what you mean by a class system, I suppose. Just because Ireland doesn't have a peerage, doesn't mean there's no class system.

Why do you believe there is no class system?

ShaggyQueen

I just don't think there's a rigid system that you're basically stuck in. Even amongst the so called elites, there doesn't seem to be the same 'old money' types who are there just because they were born into it, its a mishmash of the self made wealthy and some who inherited their wealth. Maybe its different and a bit more pronounced in Dublin because you have traditionally wealthy and poor areas, but in the rest of the country you have people from poor to wealthy who all intermingle.

The Corinthian

ShaggyQueen wrote: »

I just don't think there's a rigid system that you're basically stuck in.

I didn't say there was a rigid system that you're basically stuck in and actually think there's a lot of social mobility in Ireland. As I said, I consider the vast majority of that 'elite' to be pretty nouveau riche.

That doesn't mean that there isn't still a class system though or that barriers twoards that mobility don't still exist.

Manach

There does exist an element of class based conciousness in Ireland. Coming from a poor rural background, I've had experience of it but not really to such an extent that made much difference to my life. If a small minority of people wish to believe their appointed success in life is due to their being part of a magic circle as opposed to how they conduct themselves, who am I to burst their bubble.

The Corinthian

Manach wrote: »

If a small minority of people wish to believe their appointed success in life is due to their being part of a magic circle as opposed to how they conduct themselves, who am I to burst their bubble.

Yes, but one thing I've witnessed, in Ireland particularly, is the reverse attitude; if a small minority of people wish to believe they are somehow morally superior in life is due to their being the 'salt of the Earth' as opposed to how they conduct themselves, who am I to burst their bubble either?

Ireland's kind of weird that way.

Manach

The Corinthian wrote: »

'salt of the Earth' .

I am always reminded on Terry Pratchett's take on that: "hard, square and bad for your health".

Frank Lee Midere

The Corinthian wrote: »

Depends what you mean by a class system, I suppose. Just because Ireland doesn't have a peerage, doesn't mean there's no class system.

Why do you believe there is no class system?

There is a class system. The top 5-10%. The bottom 5-10%. And the rest.

In the middle people are generally not that different.

robp

The Corinthian wrote: »

Yes, but one thing I've witnessed, in Ireland particularly, is the reverse attitude; if a small minority of people wish to believe they are somehow morally superior in life is due to their being the 'salt of the Earth' as opposed to how they conduct themselves, who am I to burst their bubble either?

Ireland's kind of weird that way.

Same as everywhere really. People always justify their existence with claimed moral superiority whether its is Irish working class, Italian upper classes or American liberals. There is classes in Ireland but its less defined the some countries .

The Corinthian

robp wrote: »

People always justify their existence with claimed moral superiority whether its is Irish working class, Italian upper classes or American liberals.

I think you're mixing apples and oranges to a degree by lumping ideology with social class together - they're not the same thing.

Also, I'm not sure if underneath it all, the justification is moral, or if it's really about justification at all. From what I've observed it's more tribal; that one belongs to a particular sub-culture, group or 'tribe'.

Some may frame this identity in moral terms (the aforementioned "salt of the Earth"), but not always. I think it was Oscar Wilde that once said that "the problem with the poor is not that they have no money, but that they have no taste" - a common attitude amongst the 'upper orders', based more on absolute, rather than moral, superiority.

In short, the lower orders may feel morally superior on the basis that 'the meek shall inherit the Earth', but the upper orders don't need to resort to that because they don't need a moral entitlement to inherit the Earth - they already have. So they don't need morality, outside of show.

As to the middle classes; they tend to identify more with meritocracy, which the other two don't as much.

But ultimately, it's all a smoke screen for tribalism.

As for the Italian upper classes; a more amoral lot you'd be hard pushed to find.