Why has Ireland become so violent?

Karl Hungus · 28-01-2008 09:59AM

I for one am absolutely of the "Nothing to do" excuse. It's absolute ****ing bull****, and the fact that it's used to excuse violence is extremely low.

As a child of the 80's, we had **** all to do back then, but we had fun anyway. The highlight of the weekend was going out climbing trees in the local park, and I'm at a loss to think of what else we did back then. Not having anything to do is not an excuse.

The fact is, these little asspicks get up to what they do because they can do it without consequence. They fluant the fact that you can't lay a hand on them, and get their enjoyment out of your frustration. Our court system is an absolute joke, resulting in repeated slaps on the wrist at best.

Reku · 28-01-2008 10:18AM

Stance wrote: »

I live in England , all i can say is,... it's as bad if not worse over here .
I will always blame the parents , it is up to them to teach their children how to interact and how to respect others ..it's simple really .I liked your post btw.

Was about to say this, reality is that the entire world is getting more violent.
As for why, who can truely say?

Overcrowding

Prior violent acts we witness/partake in desensitising us

Hollywood and the rest of the media desensitising us

Feckless parents letting their kids run amock

Lack of community spirit

Wealth begetting greed and the willingness to use any method possible to get ahead.

Feminism resulting more in a case of females emulating males than feeling liberated to be their own kind of female and as such becoming more violent and aggressive, as such allowing the males to feel a greater level of violence is in turn permitted from them.

Wealth allowing the use of judgement impairing substances, many of which can also carry elevated aggression as a side affect.

TV, videogames and affluence (in terms of it allowing you to do X, Y and Z this weekend, instead of having to save up to do X this week, Y next week and Z next month) resulting in a lowered appreciation of things and experiences, kids get bored as they've been able to get it all done at a younger age and as such need something new to stave off the boredom. Basically a sense of being jaded.
Feeling bored => unhappyness (perhaps why the rising suicide rates) => anger => violence.

And I'm sure everyone can, or has, come up with many more possible reasons. It could be a combination of factors or it may be just the one, realistically the factor(s) which applies/applied is probably different for each individual and their circumstances.

Crumble Froo · 28-01-2008 10:31AM

i have to say, i think the biggest problem is actions without consequences. in nz here, there is an anti smacking law. come in to prevent child abuse, as the state found itself unable to prosecute people who had beaten their kids 'as punishment', but i shudder to think how these kids are coming to turn out. i suppose everyone has their own view on this, but as a kid, i was smacked, in a 'hold out your hand' and would be smacked with the parent's bare hand. occasionally would be threatened with the wooden spoon, but that was never carried out. but there were consequences. there was an understanding, somewhat debatable i suppose, but that they were my parents, elders to be respected, and i was the kid, and that was our status. i think there is possibly *too* much emphasis on everyone being equal and giving children love instead of punishment.

i do agree with it to a degree, but kids are getting away with things they shouldnt be, and it is just one thing after another. you get away with talking back to adults when you're 5/6, that is not building up any respect in that child's mind, and they are only going to get worse, imo.

Dudess · 28-01-2008 10:39AM

Solar wrote: »

I don't believe the country has got more violent....Do we really believe that wives/children in "the good ol' days" didn't get punched and kicked by their husbands after a drunken night and die days later without anyone ever putting the two events together???

I was saying that very thing to my parents recently. But they said, back in the day when they were young (50s and 60s) a murder was a MASSIVE deal - and there would be press coverage for days. No I'd believe homicide rates have gone up.
jdivision, did you go to Nagle Community College?

Blisterman · 28-01-2008 10:42AM

I think the problem is way exagerated.
If you look at the previous link, each year in Ireland, there are 0.00946215 murders per 1,000 people.

Meaning, you are 99.99999% likely, to not get murdered in 2008.

Dizzyblonde · 28-01-2008 11:43AM

green123 wrote: »

i blame the parents

Me too.

Pompey Magnus · 28-01-2008 11:48AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Look at this list and be grateful we're not near the top! http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

Thats a very interesting website. I looked at gun murders and we are agin near the bottom of the list, but we have nearly 3 times higher rate than the UK. What is their murder weapon of choice?

Blisterman · 28-01-2008 12:10PM

An interesting statistic about the UK, is that the gun murder rate has increased dramatically since stricter gun control laws were introduced, in the wake of the Dunblane Massacre.

Which goes to show, that they don't really work.

Earthhorse · 28-01-2008 12:17PM

The Edge question for 2007 was "What are you optimistic about?"

Chris Anderson wrote:

Systemic Flaws In the Reported World View

Paradoxically, one of the biggest reasons for being optimistic is that there are systemic flaws in the reported world view. Certain types of news — for example dramatic disasters and terrorist actions — are massively over-reported, others — such as scientific progress and meaningful statistical surveys of the state of the world — massively under-reported.

Although this leads to major problems such as distortion of rational public policy and a perpetual gnawing fear of apocalypse, it is also reason to be optimistic. Once you realize you're being inadvertently brainwashed to believe things are worse than they are, you can... with a little courage... step out into the sunshine.

How does the deception take place?

The problem starts with a deep human psychological response. We're wired to react more strongly to dramatic stories than to abstract facts. There are obvious historical and Darwinian reasons why this should be so. The news that an invader has just set fire to a hut in your village demands immediate response. The genes for equanimity in such circumstances got burned up long ago.

Although our village is now global, we still instinctively react the same way. Spectacle, death and gore. We lap it up. Layer on top of that a media economy that's driven by competition for attention and the problem is magnified. Over the years media owners have proven to their complete satisfaction that the stories that attract large audiences are the simple human dramas. Rottweiler Savages Baby is a bigger story than Poverty Percentage Falls even though the latter is a story about better lives for millions.

Today our media can source news from 190 countries and 6 billion people. Therefore you can be certain that every single day there will be word of spectacularly horrifying things happening somewhere. And should you get bored of reading about bombs, fires and wars, why not see them breaking live on cable 24/7 with ever more intimate pictures and emotional responses.

Meta-level reporting doesn't get much of a look-in.

So for example, the publication last year of a carefully researched Human Security Report received little attention. Despite the fact that it had concluded that the numbers of armed conflicts in the world had fallen 40% in little over a decade. And that the number of fatalities per conflict had also fallen. Think about that. The entire news agenda for a decade, received as endless tales of wars, massacres and bombings, actually missed the key point. Things are getting better. If you believe Robert Wright and his NonZero hypothesis, this is part of a very long-term and admittedly volatile trend in which cooperation eventually trumps conflict. Percentage of males estimated to have died in violence in hunter gatherer societies? Approximately 30%. Percentage of males who died in violence in the 20th century complete with two world wars and a couple of nukes? Approximately 1%. Trends for violent deaths so far in the 21st century? Falling. Sharply.

In fact, most meta-level reporting of trends show a world that is getting better. We live longer, in cleaner environments, are healthier, and have access to goods and experiences that kings of old could never have dreamed of. If that doesn't make us happier, we really have no one to blame except ourselves. Oh, and the media lackeys who continue to feed us the litany of woes that we subconsciously crave.

Stephen Pinker wrote:

The Decline of Violence

In 16th century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted on a stage and was slowly lowered into a fire. According to the historian Norman Davies, "the spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized."

As horrific as present-day events are, such sadism would be unthinkable today in most of the world. This is just one example of the most important and under appreciated trend in the history of our species: the decline of violence. Cruelty as popular entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, genocide for convenience, torture and mutilation as routine forms of punishment, execution for trivial crimes and misdemeanors, assassination as a means of political succession, pogroms as an outlet for frustration, and homicide as the major means of conflict resolution—all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. Yet today they are statistically rare in the West, less common elsewhere than they used to be, and widely condemned when they do occur.

Most people, sickened by the headlines and the bloody history of the twentieth century, find this claim incredible. Yet as far as I know, every systematic attempt to document the prevalence of violence over centuries and millennia (and, for that matter, the past fifty years), particularly in the West, has shown that the overall trend is downward (though of course with many zigzags). The most thorough is James Payne’s The History of Force; other studies include Lawrence Keeley’s War Before Civilization, Martin Daly & Margo Wilson’s Homicide, Donald Horowitz’s The Deadly Ethnic Riot, Robert Wright’s Nonzero, Peter Singer’s The Expanding Circle, Stephen Leblanc’s Constant Battles, and surveys of the ethnographic and archeological record by Bruce Knauft and Philip Walker.

Anyone who doubts this by pointing to residues of force in America (capital punishment in Texas, Abu Ghraib, sex slavery in immigrant groups, and so on) misses two key points. One is that statistically, the prevalence of these practices is almost certainly a tiny fraction of what it was in centuries past. The other is that these practices are, to varying degrees, hidden, illegal, condemned, or at the very least (as in the case of capital punishment) intensely controversial. In the past, they were no big deal. Even the mass murders of the twentieth century in Europe, China, and the Soviet Union probably killed a smaller proportion of the population than a typical hunter-gatherer feud or biblical conquest. The world’s population has exploded, and wars and killings are scrutinized and documented, so we are more aware of violence, even when it may be statistically less extensive.

What went right? No one knows, possibly because we have been asking the wrong question—"Why is there war?" instead of “Why is there peace?" There have been some suggestions, all unproven. Perhaps the gradual perfecting of a democratic Leviathan—"a common power to keep [men] in awe"—has removed the incentive to do it to them before they do it to us. Payne suggests that it’s because for many people, life has become longer and less awful—when pain, tragedy, and early death are expected features of one’s own life, one feels fewer compunctions about inflicting them on others. Wright points to technologies that enhance networks of reciprocity and trade, which make other people more valuable alive than dead. Singer attributes it to the inexorable logic of the golden rule: the more one knows and thinks, the harder it is to privilege one’s own interests over those of other sentient beings. Perhaps this is amplified by cosmopolitanism, in which history, journalism, memoir, and realistic fiction make the inner lives of other people, and the contingent nature of one’s own station, more palpable—the feeling that "there but for fortune go I."

My optimism lies in the hope that the decline of force over the centuries is a real phenomenon, that is the product of systematic forces that will continue to operate, and that we can identify those forces and perhaps concentrate and bottle them.

Sorry for the huge quotes but I think both those authors state the case more eloquently than I ever could. Link to more: http://edge.org/q2007/q07_1.html (though they are not all concerned with violence).

I know those answers don't relate directly to Ireland but I still believe the overall trend is a downward one in the long run.

kevmy · 28-01-2008 12:24PM

^^^^^ Good post. Said what I wanted too say but better

First off the world isn't getting more violent. This is the classic argument. Unfortunately it's also classic bullsh1t. Humans are violent creatures. We have fight-or-flight instincts we often fight it's part of our makeup and we wouldn't have survived without it.
Throughout history people have fought and killed over very petty things. Wars started at the drop of a hat. Going by the amount of people killed the 20th Century was the bloodiest in history but was average in the grand percentage scheme wise. Life was great 60 years ago and people were kind? Bollocks. The Nazis were making killing machines and before that we had the English and the Germans beating 7 kinds of sh1t out of each other.
So overall the world has got less not more. There is now a moral outrage at mass killings or dictatorships or war that was not present 100 years ago. The English and the French danced in the street when the 1st World War kicked off.
As for Ireland specifically well we're still low on the list of murders and it has increased in the last decade but lets not look back in ignorance. During the War of Independence and the Civil War the country was ablaze and shocking things were done. Irish Free State soldiers tied IRA guys to a tree and blew them up with mines on 3 separate occasions down in Kerry. My grandfather (now deceased) was a child back then and he used to tell me stories and I thank Christ I live now and not then.
If we look at figures. Our population has increased hugely over the last 15 years. The IRA have effectively gone out of business. Add in social deprivation in some areas and you get gangland. The IRA kept gangland figures in check for much of this countries life, now there gone the gangs have much freer reign and the Gardaí are now dealing with a different kettle of fish.
So gangland killings have increased hugely and they are a major problem. But apart from that our murder rate hasn't increased at all. The amount of people killing other people in crimes of passion/domestic rows/accidental deaths in fights etc. hasn't increased except to take account of population increase. I'll put it this way in Ireland there are about 3-5 cases a year of random murders. That is people killed for no reason. Last year we had the young Swiss girl in Galway, the plumber in Dublin who was in the ganglands way and maybe one or two more. But they are very rare. Until they start happening IMO you can't say Ireland is an overly violent country.

Depeche_Mode wrote: »

Thats a very interesting website. I looked at gun murders and we are agin near the bottom of the list, but we have nearly 3 times higher rate than the UK. What is their murder weapon of choice?

Knifes

chopperbyrne · 28-01-2008 12:28PM

Bring back the cane in schools.

It was gone by the time I was in school, but I still reckon you'll get far less anti-social behavior from people if they're punished for it regularly during their formative years.

Wacker · 28-01-2008 12:40PM

I don't think Ireland is that violent really. I have seen just two fights in the dozens of times I've been in town late, and no one has ever threatened me in anything beyond a half-hearted manner.
Most of the murders are gang related, and thus neither particularly surprising over even worrying. Many violent crimes stay in the public consciousness for years, and thus the public are clearly not desensitized (Annabels, for example. People still talk about it).

Random crimes are horrendous, but I doubt Ireland is significantly worse than most places for this.

jdivision · 28-01-2008 02:07PM

Solar wrote: »

I don't believe the country has got more violent.....

From ireland.com
Ireland's murder rate was up by nearly a third last year over the previous 12 months, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Overall, there were 104,946 headline crimes recorded in 2007, an increase of just 1.7 per cent over 2006, the CSO said.

The headline crime statistics are provisional figures for the number of serious crimes recorded by gardaí each year. There are a total of 99 different headline offences.

There were 78 murders in 2007, up from 60 the previous year - a 30 per cent increase. The number of manslaughters fell by one to six over the same period.

The CSO said there were 166 reported murder attempts or threats in 2007, an increase of over 61 per cent on the previous 12 months.

Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan noted that murders involving firearms, which he said were mainly drug-gang related, were down from 26 to 18. Stabbings increased, however, from 18 to 36.

Mr Lenihan said the increase in the headline figure of 1.7 per cent should be considered in the context of the increasing population and highlight the importance of the €1.6 billion Garda Síochána Policing Plan.

There were 35 cases of abduction, a 40 per cent rise over the figures for 2006. The numbers of false imprisonment cases rose by 32.7 per cent to 73.

The number of assaults causing harm dropped marginally, however, from 4,011 in 2006 to 3,832 last year.

There were 283 cases of rape reported in 2007, a 10.2 per cent drop over 2006. Sexual assault cases also fell by 13.7 per cent to 774 in 2007.

Cases of possession of drugs for sale or supply were up 19.7 per cent to 3,620, while there was a 58.5 per cent rise to 214 in the number of cases of cultivation, manufacture or importation of drugs.

Mr Lenihan said: "While drugs detections add to the overall crime figures, in reality they represent the level of Garda activity and success in tackling the drugs menace and reflect a sustained and comprehensive set of Garda operations throughout the State."

Arson cases were up 22 per cent to 1,998 and robberies were down by 12.4 per cent to 2,090.

Firearms offences were slightly more prevalent in 2007, with the number of recorded incidents of discharging a firearm up by 10.1 per cent from 297 in 2006 to 327. The number of cases of possession of firearm were up by just 1.4 per cent to 431.

The most significant rise in any category of recorded crime was in incidences of abandoning a child, child neglect and cruelty. Such cases were up 86 per cent last year over the previous year. There were 566 such cases recorded in 2007.

Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy, commenting on the figures for the first time since appointment as the State's top officer, vowed to lower crime overall.

"By working with the community and using information which comes from the community, we will target criminals in well-resourced, intelligence-led operations and work to bring them before the courts," he said.

He acknowledged the figures were a cause for concern but noted a "particular challenge" was posed by the amount of murders in "private locations". The Garda would work with other agencies to assess whether the underlying issues required "more than a policing response", he added.

BillyoftheBeast · 28-01-2008 02:13PM

The non-pc but truthful answer...the influx of young foreign people.

A country like Lithuania has 8 times the murder rate as Ireland. Similar story all accross eastern europe.
I do agree that there has been a rise in home grown violence and there is some interesting sociological reasons behind it.

gracehopper · 28-01-2008 02:14PM

That was a very interesting article Earthhorse.

I think education is the key for young people growing up in ireland The ability to be able to make the correct decsions growing up sets a person in good stead but due to social factors outside personal control the minds of children can be made up for them before they even get a chance. These children are probably not protected by their parents and will crave acceptance, attention bla, bla, bla. Even thinking away from violence for a minute. Does anyone think kids have just gotten bolder?? It seems that every second kid has learning difficulties or ADHD or some made up excuse for their parents not giving them enough attention.
I could not have a child at the moment because i cant devote my time to anyone except myself, my friends and my work. So I personally am not responisble enough to look after a child. You could call me selfish or childish but you could also argue that a lot of parents are too selfish to devote themselves to their children. you hear things like "oh i'd go demented being at home all day with the kids". The problem of violence and mindless anti-social behaviour stems from parents relinquishing their responsibility for their kids. This happens in one way or another across all classes whether its two young professionals working 60 hour weeks and sitting on the M50 for 3 hours a day and only seeing their kid for an half hour a day or some lazy sod drinking bulmers on their couch and not giving a crap in general.

You hear nostalgic old souls going on about the good old days and how the country is gone to crap and that there is too much violence. If you read the Daily Star then you'll most likely believe that bullsh*t. As someone said all thats happened is that the IRA has disbanded and now there are load of shams in tracksuits who think they own whatever shi*hole area they're from. There is no order or loyalty and no real gangland figure who sits at the top of the chain. Thus all the violence.

Social problems are down to the parents but it is also down to everyone in the country. There is a need for people to be more socially aware and actually care about the country. A lot of irish people (sometimes myself included) have the attitude that if it "doesnt affect them directly" then they dont care about it. We were quick to vote fianna fail back into power the last time because we were so scared of what change could bring to the economy. Our TD's are there to represent the people and they are doing just that by showing they dont give a sh*t about anyone except themselves.

utick · 28-01-2008 10:21PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Look at this list and be grateful we're not near the top! http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

from above article......... Ireland: 0.00946215 per 1,000 people not sure who dreamed up that figure but at that rate ireland would of had about 40 murders, yet in this article from rte http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0128/crime.html there were 84 murders last year giving us a rate of over 0.0200 per 1000 people which would leave us somwhere around the middle of that table.

Laslo · 28-01-2008 11:02PM

As countries go, Ireland's not really that violent at all.

MikeHoncho · 28-01-2008 11:03PM

How do you help people that dont seem to want to be helped?

Crumble Froo · 28-01-2008 11:57PM

back to the 'parents' and 'discipline' theories... preventative measures in childhood rather than cure measures later.

29-01-2008 12:29AM

utick wrote: »

from above article......... Ireland: 0.00946215 per 1,000 people not sure who dreamed up that figure but at that rate ireland would of had about 40 murders, yet in this article from rte http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0128/crime.html there were 84 murders last year giving us a rate of over 0.0200 per 1000 people which would leave us somwhere around the middle of that table.

Those figures are not as uptodate as I would like, but compared with most recent ones show a sharp rise!

SOURCES: Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention); UNODC

jdivision · 29-01-2008 01:29AM

BillyoftheBeast wrote: »

The non-pc but truthful answer...the influx of young foreign people.

.

There has been stabbings and stuff among the non-nations but most of that is drunken and non-preventable in advance.
On the other hands violent gangland crime can be reduced at least and that's where most of the viciousness is. The Westies for example aren't from a foreign country you know.
Ireland hasn't a big crime problem per se but people do worry about violent crime

rubadub · 29-01-2008 01:43AM

Wacker wrote: »

Most of the murders are gang related, and thus neither particularly surprising over even worrying. Many violent crimes stay in the public consciousness for years, and thus the public are clearly not desensitized (Annabels, for example. People still talk about it).

True, how many people can name a murder victim. I can only think of Raonaid Murray, and then maybe only since she lived a few miles away. If the Annabels incident was a few scumbags fighting over a bag of coke it would have been forgotten in no time.

Why has Ireland become so violent?

Comments