The Irish Problem of Cohesion: When solidarity becomes groupthink

B2021M wrote: »

I broadly agree with what you have outlined. I think, however, that when a particular set of consensus views exist in a country for a long time they may become self-reinforcing.

A lot of voters may not follow politics closely on a day to day basis. If there is groupthink and parties appear similar then they will not be exposed to different ideas or the possibility of voting a different way.

Nearly all Irish media portray the Tory Party and Donald Trump as 'bad' leading to negative opinions of them among people who know little about their actual policies.

What is interesting about that it was only when the middle class has to emigrated it started to be discussed as a problem in the media, and in wider discourses when the poor were emigrating it was presented as either their own fault or it was ignored. As for the general point, there has never been a deeply developed right or left in Irish politics and I don't see it developing now but you never know.

RTE (or TE as it was then) imho did almost nothing to frighten the horses. They had (still have) the Angelus every day and until quite recently bishops etc. were fawned over and never questioned. To this day not one of them has ever been properly grilled on air over the orchestrated cover-up of child abuse. Radharc (a series actually produced by the RCC "Catholic Communications Office" not RTE, and presented by priests) lasted for 35 years until 1996! This sort of programming wasn't (at least initially) holding our society back, it reflected where it was, but it became increasingly anachronistic and divorced (!) from reality over the years.

Gay Byrne was as controversial as RTE was prepared to get in the 60s/70s/80s, and he remained a pretty conservative practising Catholic all his life. But just allowing the odd dissenting opinion to be heard was enough for him to be kept only on a 3-month contract for most of his career, and TLLS came very close to cancellation a few times. Bishop and the Nightie, the other incident where the bishop of Galway was called a moron. I wasn't born then so all we have are the complaining letters etc. to go on but it would be interesting to know what ordinary people really thought then. B&N incident probably went quite some way towards making ordinary people realise how silly and out of touch, even then, the hierarchy were.

RTE mainly showed very tame domestic content (The Spike being one of the very rare exceptions, and it got canned) mixed in with US westerns and cop shows. It wasn't until RTE2 came along in 1978 that much of the country got to see some contemporary British content - including Coronation Street and (shudder!) Top of the Pops!

In the 80s more and more areas got 'deflectors' or cable TV and outside influences came to areas they'd never been before. Satellite TV by the late 90s was popular across the whole country and IMHO did a hell of a lot to liberalise rural Ireland's attitudes.

The controversial (but weren't really that controversial when the votes were actually counted) 2015 and 2018 referendums showed that the rural / urban divide barely exists any more. Even in terms of age breakdown according to the exit polls, a lot of 70 and 80-somethings have completely turned around their attitudes compared to those same people 30 and 40 years ago. We used to be a very insular country and thankfully that is long gone. We are not exceptional. We don't want "Irish solutions to Irish problems." We used to regard ourselves as a great exception in the Western world - exceptionally pious - now we are really not much different and have similar problems (but as I said recently in another thread, I'd much rather have the problems of affluence than the problems of poverty.)

If you'd have said just WWII, then maybe.

Lots of Irishmen fought in WWI and many of those who came back got involved in the independence struggle either in Sinn Fein or the IRA. Many who signed up had believed Redmond's promise that fighting for the "freedom of small nations" under the British meant freedom for Ireland, too. (It should be noted that, unlike Britain, all from the island of Ireland who fought in either world war were volunteers.)

Plenty of women were involved in the independence struggle too but they and their concerns were rapidly sidelined after independence. Irish women had more legal rights - divorce, contraception, employment - in 1922 than they did in 1972.

You might as well ask the same about the socialists who were prominent in the independence struggle.

Most of them backed the anti-treaty side and after the civil war were sidelined / excluded from participation in the economy never mind politics.

The conservative catholic Taliban took over. Some revolution...

yerra we're falling victim to all this divisive culture wars bullsh!t just like every other nation in the Anglosphere

this cohesion is going to be tested

It wasn't just them though.

CnaG / FG were very deeply conservative right up until the 80s - remember Oliver J Flanagan and Alice Glenn, anyone?

"I am an Irishman second, I am a Catholic first, and I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong." Taoiseach John A. Costello, 1951, on the occasion of the resignation of Noel Browne.

In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that the ban on contraceptives was unconstitutional. Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave infamously voted against his own party's contraception bill in 1974 on a free vote - it was defeated and contraception remained entirely illegal until 1979 and Charlie Haughey's "Irish solution to an Irish problem" - condoms on prescription only.

Even Labour and Clann na Poblachta were largely pro-church and socially conservative.

"...to repose at the feet of Your Holiness the assurance of our filial loyalty and our devotion to Your August Person, as well as our firm resolve to be guided in all our work by the teaching of Christ and to strive for the attainment of a social order in Ireland based on Christian principles". Telegram from Sean Mac Bride to Pope Pius XII on his appointment to Cabinet, 1948.

In 1922, Irish woman had a package of "rights" which a Englishmen had decided they should have. In 1972 they had the package that they themselves had voted for.

I guess that must be a great solace to the Irish women of 1972.

Take for example what's happening in Afghanistan. I take it when the Taliban start to exert their brand of Sharia Law to the women of Afghanistan, they can console themselves with the thinking that 'well at least we are being oppressed by our own!'

If people vote for something then most people are not "oppressed". The Taliban are unlikely to have STV elections, I would have thought, but you may know better.

One-off housing is just terrible! It causes so many problems I don't even know where to begin.

You admit that it's inefficient, but let's go through more of it.

One-off housing is inefficient. It costs more to service, more difficult to provide public transport, it hollows out small villages and towns, is bad for the environment, bad for society and it increases inequality, it is a drain on public funds, it increases social isolation and has impacts on mental health, they are ripe for criminal gangs due to their isolated nature, bad for health outcomes due to car dependency.

There are very very VERY few redeeming features of one-off housing in Ireland. There is a reason why almost no other western EU country does it.

Build up rural Ireland by getting people to live in the villages and towns again. You can still have you McMansion if done correctly but able to walk to the pub/shop/school/job rather than take a car to the nearest bigger town.