US billionaire calls out Ireland as "no one wants to live here"

the purple tin

You can get very good food in Dublin. Nearly any type of cuisine from around the world.

Was your man getting batter burgers and spice boxes out of a local chipper or something

ShatterAlan

Mad_maxx wrote: »

American Republicans wouldn't be too far wrong on that one

They WOULD be wrong in that they have no idea what liberalism or socialism is.


They equate universal healthcare with Soviet gulags and Pol Pot style purges.

AutoTuning

I think though we are getting carried away. Random tech bro makes comment that we find obnoxious. Time to move on?

Did anyone know who he was last week? I doubt it.

Maybe he doesn’t like Ireland. Big deal! Tastes vary.

ShatterAlan

Elite Genetics wrote: »

Ireland bas better weather than San Francisco lol. That's a first bahahahahaha.

Did you read the article? It said it rained more than 50% of the first 70 days of 2019. Maybe you want to call up ABC news and tell them that they are a pack of liars or maybe just shout "bahaha" down the line.

JustAThought

jmlad2020 wrote: »

Maybe he is talking about Dublin specifically and it's depressing housing market /quality of life which is dire to the majority who don't have a high wage or have struck it lucky with inheritance.

Poor weather, poor transport system and average food - yes i'd agree with some of his comments.

i think his enterprise was based in Cork so i’d assume that was where his comments were about. I’d agree with him on the weather and poor housing - compared to the spacious pads with all mod cons and pools in landscaped gardens and decking set up for outdoor living and rhe variety of architectures and styles in California I can’t imagine that we compare well. That having been said Cork has one of the more interesting and varied city ‘landscapes’ in Ireland so that’s as varied as its going to get - assuming he pays his staff well enough to afford non-boxy identikit suburban houses.

If someone offered you the choice of living in A house of your choice in Cork, or in California I know which one I’d choose! That having been said the endless complaints and negativity about work and lifestyles in the US on another thread here askjng about work life balance & work holidays in the US has clearly shown that the Irish also either have huge misconceptions or misgivings about living and working in the US.

Personally I’d great experiences - especially in California (San Fran) where the food IS great and varied - and like the company owner I had the extra stone or two to prove it after I came home here! First world problems!

As for friendliness I wonder whom he is referring to here? His American staff? People he met in hotels or serving him over here? In all likelyhood probably a far cry from the over friendly USA customer service - but more likely not even Irish - who knows. But we are a living breathing interacting people not a pop up friendliness booth for the amusement of visitors or strangers. I doubt in the US that staff are rolled out and expected to perform their americanness like performing monkeys or some free historical talking musuem as many seem to expect...and endless platter of data on the IRA, Northern Ireland, the famine and their own personal roots/Irishness. It gets predictable and tedious after a while - thou no doubt well intended. Peoples Irish lives and likes are not freebies for his staffs entertainment or gratification - that’s what tour guides and service staff in good hotels offer - for everyone else you have to be nice and earn friendship or be lost or in trouble and someone will help you.

As for himself - maybe part of his problem was that over here he is not known,was not recognised, not fawned over or blackslapped and high fived like he would be in a media focused high recognition spot like Silicon Valley where many would recognise him and know his wealth - and usefulness and market value to them personally or professionally. Perhaps part of his problem is that over her he was unrecognised and treated just like anybody else, not the billionaires reception he has grown used to - and he didn’t like it or just being another Joe Soap who has to earn his friendships not just demand or expect it.

Well no one ever said it was perfect but FFS maybe your man could try living up the side of a mountain in fukcin' Somalia and then come back and tell us all how Ireland is a bit shyte :rolleyes:

AutoTuning

JustAThought wrote: »

i think his enterprise was based in Cork so i’d assume that was where his comments were about. I’d agree with him on the weather and poor housing - compared to the spacious pads with all mod cons and pools in landscaped gardens and decking set up for outdoor living and rhe variety of architectures and styles in California I can’t imagine that we compare well. That having been said Cork has one of the more interesting and varied city ‘landscapes’ in Ireland so that’s as varied as its going to get - assuming he pays his staff well enough to afford non-boxy identikit suburban houses.

If someone offered you the choice of living in A house of your choice in Cork, or in California I know which one I’d choose! That having been said the endless complaints and negativity about work and lifestyles in the US on another thread here askjng about work life balance & work holidays in the US has clearly shown that the Irish also either have huge misconceptions or misgivings about living and working in the US.

Personally I’d great experiences - especially in California (San Fran) where the food IS great and varied - and like the company owner I had the extra stone or two to prove it after I came home here! First world problems!

As for friendliness I wonder whom he is referring to here? His American staff? People he met in hotels or serving him over here? In all likelyhood probably a far cry from the over friendly USA customer service - but more likely not even Irish - who knows. But we are a living breathing interacting people not a pop up friendliness booth for the amusement of visitors or strangers. I doubt in the US that staff are rolled out and expected to perform their americanness like performing monkeys or some free historical talking musuem as many seem to expect...and endless platter of data on the IRA, Northern Ireland, the famine and their own personal roots/Irishness. It gets predictable and tedious after a while - thou no doubt well intended. Peoples Irish lives and likes are not freebies for his staffs entertainment or gratification - that’s what tour guides and service staff in good hotels offer - for everyone else you have to be nice and earn friendship or be lost or in trouble and someone will help you.

To be quite honest, with a big budget in California or Cork you’ll get a fantastic home. I mean a big budget in Cork will probably get you some very well designed home with sweeping views over the city, potentially some period mansion or a very architecturally driven home in Kinsale, living a yachty, foodie lifestyle.

On a lower budget you get much blander and smaller. The same applies in California. Some of the cities, particularly as you get closer to Silicon Valley are extremely expensive and have lots of small housing by American standards.

Big, cheap houses tend to be more of a feature of the US Midwest and less high demand areas.

JustAThought

AutoTuning wrote: »

To be quite honest, with a big budget in California or Cork you’ll get a fantastic home. I mean a big budget in Cork will probably get you some very well designed home with sweeping views over the city, potentially some period mansion or a very architecturally driven home in Kinsale, living a yachty, foodie lifestyle.

On a lower budget you get much blander and smaller. The same applies in California. Some of the cities, particularly as you get closer to Silicon Valley are extremely expensive and have lots of small housing by American standards.

Big, cheap houses tend to be more of a feature of the US Midwest and less high demand areas.

Yes I agree totally with all your comments but if you are working in a tech company one would hope you are being paid a decent wage & can afford somewhere that isn’t a hovel to choose to rent. I know Silicone Valley has its unique problems with market rates for rentals but the range and variety are still far better than in Cork! No offense Cork which has some beautiful areas! And you don’t have to put an umberella over California to be able to sit outside or have a rowboat at the end if your garden on hand for the annual floods! If someone offered me San Fran or Cork I’d be on the plane again asap!! (Pretending Covid & usa medical bills didn’t exist of course!)

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Our weather is shocking, in fairness. Not being able to anywhere this summer highlighted its crapness for me.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Bigus wrote: »

People from very hot dry countries, really appreciate our Irish weather, I’ve been told this, numerous times , first hand from both tourists and full time immigrants to Ireland from Australia,Florida,Texas, the Middle East and even met people from Germany and Italy, who come here summertime for the cool.

Their quest for colder climate, helped me appreciate our actual weather and also how get the most out of it ,by adapting my outdoor activities to suit. I also have experience of living for extended periods in hot countries so I’m not blinkered and would much prefer our mix, rather than intense heat, especially now with actual global warming.

I, on the other hand, have heard numerous complaints about the weather from people from hotter climes. The novelty of the mild climate quickly wears off when you are facing your 100th overcast day in a row and can’t make reliable outdoor summer plans.

AutoTuning

JustAThought wrote: »

Yes I agree totally with all your comments but if you are working in a tech company one would hope you are being paid a decent wage & can afford somewhere that isn’t a hovel to choose to rent. I know Silicone Valley has its unique problems with market rates for rentals but the range and variety are still far better than in Cork! No offense Cork which has some beautiful areas! And you don’t have to put an umberella over California to be able to sit outside or have a rowboat at the end if your garden on hand for the annual floods! If someone offered me San Fran or Cork I’d be on the plane again asap!! (Pretending Covid & usa medical bills didn’t exist of course!)

Unless you live on the quays or practically in the Lee, you’re not going to have a rowboat for annual floods. Anymore I suppose than you’d need asbestos suits and breathing apparatus for the annual fires in California, as they don’t typically rage through Silicon Valley.

The choice of rental options in Ireland is a mess thought we don’t seem to get that society isn’t about 4 bedroom suburban houses in the 1970s anymore and supply isn’t meeting demand at all.

What’s annoys me about Irish cities is that we are recreating the price points and low quality accommodation that drags somewhere like London or Paris down, but our cities are small and not taking advantage of their scale.

You can literally see the countryside from O’Connell Street, yet Dublin seems to imagine its London or NYC.

There’s nothing wrong with the fact it’s a small European capital or that Cork is a small European city, but we need to start thinking more like them.

The models should be Copehangen, Bordeaux, Oslo etc for Dublin and places like Bergen or Aarhus or Nantes or Rennes for Cork.

We keep repeating British city mistakes and using the U.K. as our bar and it often is a very low or undesirable bar or we are off imagining Dublin is comparable to Paris or Madrid, which it absolutely isn’t even in the same ball park size wise.

Elite Genetics

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

I, on the other hand, have heard numerous complaints about the weather from people from hotter climes. The novelty of the mild climate quickly wears off when you are facing your 100th overcast day in a row and can’t make reliable outdoor summer plans.

Exactly the same. I work in a multinational with majority of the office non irish. Number #1 complaint is the weather.

Elite Genetics

AutoTuning wrote: »

Unless you live on the quays or practically in the Lee, you’re not going to have a rowboat for annual floods. Anymore I suppose than you’d need asbestos suits and breathing apparatus for the annual fires in California, as they don’t typically rage through Silicon Valley.

The choice of rental options in Ireland is a mess thought we don’t seem to get that society isn’t about 4 bedroom suburban houses in the 1970s anymore and supply isn’t meeting demand at all.

You can't blame the location for that. The fires are caused by humans by performing actions such as gender reveal parties. Remove the humans and it is solved.

whisky_galore

AutoTuning wrote: »

Unless you live on the quays or practically in the Lee, you’re not going to have a rowboat for annual floods. Anymore I suppose than you’d need asbestos suits and breathing apparatus for the annual fires in California, as they don’t typically rage through Silicon Valley.

The choice of rental options in Ireland is a mess thought we don’t seem to get that society isn’t about 4 bedroom suburban houses in the 1970s anymore and supply isn’t meeting demand at all.

People will still look for the semi d as they're quite rightly wary of the appalling sh1tbox standard of apartment that have been fired up in this country.

Elite Genetics

whisky_galore wrote: »

People will still look for the semi d as they're quite rightly wary of the appalling sh1tbox standard of apartment that have been fired up in this country.

Would never live in an apartment. Having to hear annoying children screaming and trampling.

AutoTuning

whisky_galore wrote: »

People will still look for the semi d as they're quite rightly wary of the appalling sh1tbox standard of apartment that have been fired up in this country.

That and the expectation that independent adults should have to share suburban family homes as a solution to housing isn’t really acceptable.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Sky King wrote: »

We need to get over our obsessive need for validation, to be seen as being 'sound' ... to agonise over how we're perceived elsewhere.

Go on a tourists YouTube video guide OF Ireland, or a video guide which explains irish accents and sayings to outsiders and it's all Irish eejits in the comments.

And don't get me started on the 'sound irish football fans' changing peoples tyres and cutting people's lawns. Fkin CRINGE.

We're not that sound. Its a total veneer of fakeness which is a combination of the aforementioned need for validation mixed with an inferiority complex, blended with our total indirectness as a culture.

Speak to an immigrant in this country. Irish people are unbelievably cliquey and difficult to make good friends with after you crack past the first hour or so.

I’ve been lambasted both online and in real life for saying how cringeworthy I find all that shite. Now, I have no problem at all with Ireland fans heading off to tournaments and joining street parties and having the craic with fans of other nations. That sounds great. It’s just all that performative nonsense, the desperation to go viral that has happened in the last few tournaments. CRINGEWORTHY.

And agreed on the YouTube videos wondering at our accents and names and saying. Lads, we live on a planet with over 6,000 languages. I’m sure they all have colourful phrases and names and all the rest. We’re not unique.

And also agreed on the last bolded bit. The place in rural Ireland where I’m originally from still sees people unironically use the phrase “blow in”. The amount of raised eyebrows about a decade ago when a local man married a Japanese woman, all very “Where did he meet HER?”.

AutoTuning

I guess I grew up in a *very* different Ireland to most of you then. Non-religious household and extremely multicultural extended family, including Europe, Asia and African in-laws. I never really thought of it as unusual to have French and German speaking cousins, to be able to pick up the phone in Shanghai and have relations or going to a NYC Jewish wedding.

On both sides of my own ancestry I’ve Irish, English, Scottish, French, Italian, Spanish and Norwegians.

Seems many of the rest of you seem to have spent your time marrying your cousins from the same village (No offence)

I’m probably a blow in everywhere! Who knew.

ShatterAlan

AutoTuning wrote: »

Unless you live on the quays or practically in the Lee, you’re not going to have a rowboat for annual floods. Anymore I suppose than you’d need asbestos suits and breathing apparatus for the annual fires in California, as they don’t typically rage through Silicon Valley.

The choice of rental options in Ireland is a mess thought we don’t seem to get that society isn’t about 4 bedroom suburban houses in the 1970s anymore and supply isn’t meeting demand at all.

What’s annoys me about Irish cities is that we are recreating the price points and low quality accommodation that drags somewhere like London or Paris down, but our cities are small and not taking advantage of their scale.

You can literally see the countryside from O’Connell Street, yet Dublin seems to imagine its London or NYC.

There’s nothing wrong with the fact it’s a small European capital or that Cork is a small European city, but we need to start thinking more like them.

The models should be Copehangen, Bordeaux, Oslo etc for Dublin and places like Bergen or Aarhus or Nantes or Rennes for Cork.

We keep repeating British city mistakes and using the U.K. as our bar and it often is a very low or undesirable bar or we are off imagining Dublin is comparable to Paris or Madrid, which it absolutely isn’t even in the same ball park size wise.

You can see the countryside from the top of the Empire State on a clear day

vriesmays

The factories are full of dancing bog men - microdisney.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

AutoTuning wrote: »

I guess I grew up in a *very* different Ireland to most of you then. Non-religious household and extremely multicultural extended family, including Europe, Asia and African in-laws. I never really thought of it as unusual to have French and German speaking cousins, to be able to pick up the phone in Shanghai and have relations or going to a NYC Jewish wedding.

On both sides of my own ancestry I’ve Irish, English, Scottish, French, Italian, Spanish and Norwegians.

Seems many of the rest of you seem to have spent your time marrying your cousins from the same village (No offence)

I’m probably a blow in everywhere! Who knew.

Why bother with this disclaimer?

AutoTuning

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

Why bother with this disclaimer?

In case I ever need to go to said village.

turbot

I think this depends on where you are.

If you're in an area like Ballsbridge or Enniskerry, restaurants and food is great.

If you're in the city centre, it can be a mixed bag of "expensive cheap food"... compared to say SF.

Regarding how friendly the Irish are with outsiders, I've heard this a lot.

If you're proactive and charming, you can make friends anywhere.
If you're a bit more withdrawn and rely on culture versus your own skills, Ireland can be more cliquey. I know lots of foreign people who moved to Ireland said, despite their best efforts, they had hardly any Irish friends. While this is not always true, it is often true for some.

ShatterAlan

Elite Genetics wrote: »

Would never live in an apartment. Having to hear annoying children screaming and trampling.

You won't hear any of that if it's a well built apartment and of course if there are no children.
You're a lot safer from burglaries in an apartment too. Pretty difficult to gain access to the gated area at the back and then shin up a drain pipe to the second or third floor and then try to get onto a balcony and gain access if you haven't already lost your footing and plunged down again and broken your neck.

IAMAMORON

AutoTuning wrote: »

To be quite honest, with a big budget in California or Cork you’ll get a fantastic home. I mean a big budget in Cork will probably get you some very well designed home with sweeping views over the city, potentially some period mansion or a very architecturally driven home in Kinsale, living a yachty, foodie lifestyle.

On a lower budget you get much blander and smaller. The same applies in California. Some of the cities, particularly as you get closer to Silicon Valley are extremely expensive and have lots of small housing by American standards.

Big, cheap houses tend to be more of a feature of the US Midwest and less high demand areas.

Yeah but who the phuck would want to live in California....

They play soccer there.

ShatterAlan

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

I’ve been lambasted both online and in real life for saying how cringeworthy I find all that shite. Now, I have no problem at all with Ireland fans heading off to tournaments and joining street parties and having the craic with fans of other nations. That sounds great. It’s just all that performative nonsense, the desperation to go viral that has happened in the last few tournaments. CRINGEWORTHY.

And agreed on the YouTube videos wondering at our accents and names and saying. Lads, we live on a planet with over 6,000 languages. I’m sure they all have colourful phrases and names and all the rest. We’re not unique.

And also agreed on the last bolded bit. The place in rural Ireland where I’m originally from still sees people unironically use the phrase “blow in”. The amount of raised eyebrows about a decade ago when a local man married a Japanese woman, all very “Where did he meet HER?”.

Those videos of Irish fans in France doing all their cringeworthy, contrived, crap like singing lullabies to babies on trains and proposing to pretty women just for the camera were truly nauseating and embarrassing. The Japs clean up rubbish in the stadiums because it's in their DNA. They do that back home in Japan too. The Irish were doing it just for likes and to bluff out the rest of the world that they were so great and sound and loveable when it was just attention-seeking theatre. Would they do that crap back in Ireland on any given day? Not a hope. They'd go to electric Picnic and leave the place looking like Nagasaki when it was all over.

AutoTuning

To be fair, it went down ***EXTREMELY*** well in French media and wasn’t seen cynically at all.

Our football fans are totally different to most because we don’t really have soccer as a proxy for war, as one or two noteworthy countries or and plenty of big clubs’ fans tend to approach it.

Irish international soccer is more like the Mighty Ducks - football as a feel good, inflatable shamrock shaking, Disney movie day out.

BloodyBill

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

I had a father a bit like that - I always admired his courageousness - but a brother of mine said to me a few years after - na , he was just a bit of an arsehole.

If your going into a bar in a dodgy area - you can go in and have the craic or you can cause trouble.

Even if your going to say something controversial , you need to have the skill and street smart to do it. In fact - the Irish are masters at it. Others get into daft fights.

The Irish do get in daft fights...probably more than anyone. Have you noticed how many of our young fellas in Australia have gotten into serious trouble for being asshats. Not them all..obviously. but the Aussies don't buy our brand of annoying 'crack' when drunk..the low level chip throwing,horsing around

Rrrrrr2

sparkledrum wrote: »

I can't understand why people are agreeing with him on food. I'm presuming he's talking about restaurant food. We have so much choice. It's a bit of a broad statement to make.

Coming from a yank this is laughable- one of the great EU benefits is the high food standards we enjoy and is relatively affordable too. The foodie revolution has really swept Ireland the past two decades. American “food” is awful over manufactured produced crap. My stomach churns at the thoughts of most of it.

FixdePitchmark

BloodyBill wrote: »

The Irish do get in daft fights...probably more than anyone. Have you noticed how many of our young fellas in Australia have gotten into serious trouble for being asshats. Not them all..obviously. but the Aussies don't buy our brand of annoying 'crack' when drunk..the low level chip throwing,horsing around

To extend the generalities - Aussies not know as the most passive in the world.