How well do you know your Neighbours?

freshpopcorn

The sad case about the English couple in Tipperary made me think if this. Some people online are being a bit harsh on the the people the area in my opinion.

I live on a country road with about 8 houses and some businesses.

I know most of my neighbours to see, by name, what they do, etc and most of the road in similar. However we'd never call into one another for tea/coffee. We'd all have family and friends visiting tough.

I do know of some people tough who really keep to themselves. They've often fallen out with family and friends in my experience.

Count Dracula

I have heard many a story about rural Ireland being harsh and 2 faced with "Blow ins" and people not from " The Parish". The reality is that community can often be as toxic to inter community relationships as it can facilitate and nurture a healthy environment to habitat. Irish people are naturally begrudging and far too competitive, even with their neighbours.

To keep my comment fair I also respect that many people who choose to live in isolated or small environments are quite often seeking a higher level of privacy and seclusion that they find elsewhere. That involves making sacrifices on how your neighbours are going to be friendly or socially cooperative with you. More often than not they are seeking the same level of privacy. Apart from any 4th or 5th generations locals... they are just painful bores who reckon they own the place and have the right to pass comment on anything that moves next door. Phuck them for starters.

Montage of Feck

I've made peace with the fact that my putrid cat eaten corpse won't be found for a considerable amount of time due to my lack of family and introvert personality. :)

odyssey06

I haven't really watched Neighbours much since the 90s. Seems like I'm not alone, as it is about to be cancelled. Might check in on the finale, I hear Kylie is back.

* This is AH after all...

Gant21

Covid and Eamonn Ryan have alot to answer for.

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119253656#Comment_119253656

That's a stretch now in fairness. It seems their neighbours assumed they'd gone back to the UK because they'd told their neighbours they were returning.

It took 18 months for a neighbour to see their 2 cars around the back of the house so he must have gone in for a nose about if no one else spotted the cars.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119253656#Comment_119253656

Did Eamonn kill them personally or did he just order the hit?

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119253656#Comment_119253656

And country people were nice to English blow-ins before that? Yeah ....

nokpam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119255661#Comment_119255661

Anyone who blew in was ok. The dudes who barged in though were never terribly welcome. They'd be about as welcome now as the dogs and the Irish in London.

nokpam

you'd never like to see a fella stuck, but ya wouldn't want him to outstay his welcome.

John_Rambo

I live urban in Dublin. Very mixed neighbourhood in age & background, elderly are looked after, people keep an eye on them, even the ones that don't really want to be part of the community.

Awful news from Tip, the couple that didn't talk to anyone ever but told everyone they were moving to France or back to the UK.

dorothylives

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119253560#Comment_119253560

You should get a cat flap. It's only fair to the cat, I mean there's only so much decomposed human flesh they can eat before they start fancying a tin of Whiskas.

Dempo1

I'm fascinated with the Impression of Rural folk looking out for neighbours and impressions of community spirit etc.

The case involving the Couple in Tipp is very tragic on many fronts but I'll say this, I'm suprised not a single person called to the property, even from a welfare check point of view, the lady appears to have had an illness, was there post building up, what about utility companies and most strange aspect is that no one seems to have noticed the car. I'm not making any judgements but this is by no means the first time this has happened in a rural property.

I'm from Dublin but moved to very rural Laois 21 years ago. I did sense a friendlier atmosphere in the first few years but gradually people, locally became more insular, kept to themselves, why I cant explain but certainly its more pronounced since Covid.

I live alone, reasonably friendly and always attempt to be helpful when called upon but I made a conscious decision very early on not to mingle, the "friendly neighbourhood set" as I like to call them were actually only truly interested in my business, nothing more, nothing less, shallow in a sense.

Most of my personal friends live in different counties or abroad, I'd of course be known in the village but as the Dub who owns the quirky cottage, I'm an enigma to locals in a sense and that suits me perfectly, I actually had Dreadlocks when I first arrived and can only imagine what locals thought of me 😂

If a total stranger came up to me outside my cottage and asked were so and so lived, I'd not have a clue, whilst very rural there's a cluster of houses near me and despite being in my cottage 21 years, I could actually not tell anyone the names of those who live in those houses.

I could go weeks without a caller to my home and those that do are not local or neighbours. This in part is my own decision and approach and I'd had often been away for months on end working abroad or working away from home.

Of course I communicate with the outside world, Phone, email Zoom etc but rarely locally.

I think society in general has changed dramatically, Rural Ireland is absolutely not the utopian, cuddly neighbourly world people sometimes think it is.

Would I swap it to move back to an urban location , not on your nelly, I live in the Slieve Bloom mountains and have all the company and fabulous scenery I need 😏

Mad_maxx

Locals in rural Ireland have a rule

Unless you can claim three generations buried in the local graveyard, you are a blow in

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119255841#Comment_119255841

"I'm suprised not a single person called to the property, even from a welfare check point of view, the lady appears to have had an illness, was there post building up, what about utility companies and most strange aspect is that no one seems to have noticed the car."

It is all very puzzling - whatever about Covid and people wanting privacy, there was almost certainly the occasional letter/ bill being delivered and meters to be read etc. Surely anybody calling by must have seen the growth of weeds, build up of post and car parked up.

Furze99

As to OP, we live in a rural area, not in our neighbours pockets but they'd notice soon enough if anything was amiss.

John_Rambo

They allegedly paid someone to mow the lawn, paid cash up front and told him to mow until the money ran out.

Doesn't sound plausible, probably a convenient bar stool story.

FlubberJones

Lived rurally for years, neighbours were nosey f*ckers that were constantly interested in what everyone else was doing, working, earning or how much land they had....

Moved to Dublin, know the neighbours as much as I say good morning to them... this is it and it is far better

Mad_maxx

Once you are a blow in ,at all times you must be available and willing to answer every question no matter how personal, otherwise you will get a name of being " awkward "

The same does not apply in reverse, should you ask any question to a native, it will cause the local to tighten up

endacl

I know the first names of my neighbours in the house on the right, but not their kids. Pretty sure of the name of the husband on the other side. Other half’s brother has a house across the road. I know him.

Here 17 years.

Wezz

Okay now but took a while. We are both blow ins and foreigners at that. Some people had no interest in getting to know us and some still won’t even say hello. Most are fine with us now but I don’t think it will ever progress beyond a casual thing. It really sure why.

Bobblehats

Very well, Willy is doing my lawn I put my back out. Good fella.

BattleCorp

I rode a couple of them years ago so I'd know those ones fairly well.

dorothylives

I'd know a few to make brief casual conversation with. I could put names to a lot of faces who've been here for years. There's a few new arrivals I could narrow down to maybe India or Pakistan, no idea really, they keep to themselves. There's nobody in the immediate neighbourhood who lives alone or who'd be considered vulnerable and I'd say that it would be noticed fairly quickly if people who should be around weren't seen for a while.

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119257190#Comment_119257190

Nobody called as they kept themselves to themselves. They had also told the locals they were moving away and had made arrangements for the grass to be cut for a while. The cars were around the back of the house so the neighbour who spotted them had to have been looking around the house.

It's very odd as they might have been set to move and both died unexpectedly, or they might have wanted it to look like they'd left. It's sad either way, but their neighbours aren't to blame for them being undiscovered for so long. People have a right to live isolated from their community if they want.

Buddy and Pal.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119258003#Comment_119258003

I think the whole grass cutting arrangements was a spoof to shine a sympathetic light on the community.

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119258718#Comment_119258718

The community must be very insecure if they felt they needed to do that.

Sorolla

I bought a lovely house in the west of Ireland 25 years ago.

i used it as a holiday home and tried and tried to get to know the neighbors with absolutely no success.

I spent many a summer there and would have been working around the house doing whatever repairs were necessary and I would nod and greet anyone that passed by the house.

I am 100% sure if I fell of the roof and died out of sight at the back of the house - not one of the neighbours would notice.

Anyway, when Irish Water was sending out the letters many years ago - I noticed I did not get any correspondance and then it dawned on me that very little mail was delivered to the house.

I went to the local shop(which also housed the local post office) to enquire why very little mail was being delivered to the house.

The auld buck working at the post office basically told me my life story - told me who I was and who my father and grandfather were.

He knew what I did for a living and where I lived and who my spouce was and how many children I had.

He couldn`t explain why mail was going "missing".

Anyway I complained a lot about this.

The auld buck in the post office was the local postmaster, local shopkeeper, local undertaker, local publican, local county councillor.

A short time later I got a letter delivered to my home address advising me that my property was in direlection and if some measures were not untertaken the property would go onto the dereliction list.

There are a lot of really bad looking properties in this locality and they received nothing.

Only one property was threathened with the dereliction list.

Make of that what you will.

Sorolla

If the gardai make a "welfare check" on a property - they may have to "break into" the property.

Who pays for the damage to the locks if the property is empty?

Do they leave a note for the house owner so that when they return to the property they will know that the house was "broken into" but it was part of a "welfare check"

Beatty69

I live in rural Ireland but I'm from Dublin originally so do go up there every so often. I know if I was to go missing no-one around here would raise an alarm because they would presume I'm gone to Dublin, that's fair enough though.

At the same time, if my car was still outside I would hope someone would raise the alarm soon enough but honestly I wouldn't be completely sure that it would be because I keep myself to myself and the locals don't particularly like that because they don't know my every detail. Sad really that people can't care for their neighbours unless they know all their business.