What can the world learn from Ireland?

tdv123 · 24-10-2013 08:49PM

Urban Warfare

Pouring a proper pint

Lucky charms

Jigs

Loads of stuff people can learn from us.

Femme_Fatale · 24-10-2013 08:59PM

strongback wrote: »

Ireland really is a country of mealy mouthed, small minded sh1t heads. I don't think I can take it for much longer.

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Meekness, bleating, subservience, how to take it up the ass from the Germans, how to turn a blind eye to white collar crime, how to shaft your own people for the crimes of others, the list is endless really.

To whinge and whinge like the above but never actually do anything to change it, only put down other people for not doing anything to change it.

To have little to no perspective.

doolox wrote: »

The rankings at world level put Ireland among the highest in Human development index terms. It seems to me that if you have a job and a reasonably good education then you can have a good standard of living here. People I have spoken to from other countries point out that there is more concern about security, racial and ethnic tension and inequality elsewhere than in Ireland. Also our welfare support systems are a lot higher than elsewhere. No need for private schools here to avoid the underclass that prevails in other countries.

I do not know can you "skip the queue" by paying privately to see a doctor in England but would imagine it would be very expensive and worth it only for the very highly paid.

Access to countryside activities I have been told is very cheap here by international standards, such as field games and horse riding and walking etc.
Access to pools and indoor facilities however can be dearer than the average internationally but this is improving, not the cost of gyms in the last 5 yrs since the tiger expired........

Food i would say is top notch especially meat and dairy which are much dearer elsewhere and of variable quality.

Very much in agreement with the above - the things people take for granted in this country are baffling.

irishfeen · 24-10-2013 09:06PM

Pretending to shoot a cat on national television is a despicable rotten action..... Rape, Murder, Drugs - ah now its only a tv programme.

Cody Pomeray · 25-10-2013 09:11AM

Wibbs wrote: »

Not quite. There was quite the cultural and economic difference between "the second city of the Empire" Dublin and ports like Cork and the rest of the country for a start. To this day the name Jackeens for Dubliners remains. Union Jack=Jackeens. Dublin was pretty much like any other city(more like town) of it's size in the UK, but Connemara say may has well have been the moon in many ways.

But I am not particularly interested in Connemara, or Donegal, and not even Kerry. Industrial revolutions happen in established cities, my query is why it didn't happen in Dublin.

As you correctly point out, Dublin was not the second city in terms of size. Yet the population of Dublin did increase rapidly in the 19th century; from 1800 to 1900 it had shot up in the order of 60%. Whilst this was rapid by modern standards, it was nowhere near as high as Edinburgh (160%), Aberdeen (500%), or Glasgow (900%).

Yet clearly we had an adequate population to start an industrial revolution.

In 1790 Dublin was twice as populous as Glasgow. In 1890 Glasgow was over twice as populous as Dublin.

So... Dublin had the population, it had the British administration, it had **a famine** to get people of the land for once and for all, as it it had in the Scottish Highlands.

It's not as though Irish people were loyal to the land. Irish people couldn't wait to vamoose out of here in the 19th century. But, there being nothing in the urban centres, they left for Scotland, and Liverpool, and further afield.

So despite the potential, nothing came. Nothing at all until the 1960s, when apparently change came by way of a random spark.

This is pretty confusing to me to be honest.

Another aspect we had in our favour was we could feed ourselves. The UK could not and relied on food imports(inc from here) from way back.

But it's doubtful that this has been truly in our favour since the late 18th century. Agricultural societies are almost inevitably economically inferior to industrialised ones. And anyway, it was the late 1950s when we withdrew from protectionism and liberalised trade, and when we moved away from being able to feed ourselves, that industrial progress began and living standards improved.

And whilst reform of the Control of Manufactures Act is often cited as the reason for economic expansion, that goes back to relaying a fact that happened, but there remains no real explanation as to why it happened.

What causes this kind of policy change, and then what makes the policy change work with such enormous effect?

Right place/ right time/ right population demographic didn't work for us in the 19th century. Why did it work for us in the 1960s?

Plus on the other side of the "we did better(we did)" coin was the British steadily did worse after WW2 bankrupted them They lost the biggest empire the world had ever known in a remarkably short time.

1. That's quite true, but raises the question of why, with ourselves so dependent on them, we didn't just follow them down. Something obviously changed.
2. It doesn't explain our performance relative to the rest of the world.

Cody Pomeray · 25-10-2013 09:19AM

maninasia wrote: »

So ...the ...effing ...what.

Almost every country is better off in 2013 than 1913

yeah but we're disproportionately better. It's pretty remarkable, actually, but I accept the "everything is sh1te" banner is always in the back of the hot press, ready to be pulled out when anyone mentions Ireland in terms of world living standards.

gugleguy · 25-10-2013 09:29AM

How to act on public transport. Have a loud conversation on ur mobile on the bus/ luas/dart as if it was the hottest new bling u were talking about even if it is only about how little jonnie won'nt finish all his brekkie in the morning. Always closing the Dublin windows with a bang or opening them just to blow a draft in other peoples faces.

Wibbs · 25-10-2013 09:57AM

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

But I am not particularly interested in Connemara, or Donegal, and not even Kerry. Industrial revolutions happen in established cities, my query is why it didn't happen in Dublin.

IIndustrial revolutions happen in some places and not others for all sorts of reasons. They don't require established cities either. They can spring up around natural resources. Dublin's main resource was it's port and that's about it. However this was enough to make it's residents very wealthy at one point, hence the fancy Georgian streets that removed most of the medieval town. Never mind the huge amounts of land reclaimed from marsh and the sea. So it had an economic revolution on the back of it's trade/port, before the industrial revolution that was to come.

It didn't continue to grow for all sorts of reasons. It's relative wealth may well have been one of them. They could afford to import, rather than try to build the means of manufacture locally(with the exception of beer

). Plus even though the British controlled Ireland to a large degree, it was still a land not fully under control with low level dissent going on with pockets of actual insurrection from time to time, so that's hardly attractive to potential investors from the wider UK. Never mind that much of the country spoke a different language. If you had money in say 1850 and were given the choice of starting a factory in a field in the English midlands or one in the Irish midlands, which would you have picked? The UK's population was still significantly higher. The UK had more reserves of coal and iron and more infrastructure because of the population and was geographically and culturally closer(important one. Look at Scotland in the industrial revolution. It's centers of that boom were pretty much the closest to England). It simply had a larger preindustrial base to start with.

So despite the potential, nothing came. Nothing at all until the 1960s, when apparently change came by way of a random spark.

BUt it wasn't a sudden spark and it wasn't random. After the British left we were pretty damned poor, but some good planning in the early days, like hydroelectrical plants and electrification itself, education for all, communications etc were reaching a point in the 60's whereby the state could grow from that. Then our joining of the Common Market really helped in practical and psychological ways. We were playing catch up and by the 60/70's had started to catch up.

Agricultural societies are almost inevitably economically inferior to industrialised ones.

Actually one can have both. Germany a good example. NOt a lot of people remember that in WW2 the Germans didn't have rationing until near the very end. They were a very agricultural society as well as an industrial one.

Right place/ right time/ right population demographic didn't work for us in the 19th century. Why did it work for us in the 1960s?

Simply because it wasn't the right place(lower natural resources/less infrastructure) the right time was happening elsewhere and the population was smaller and dissident and in many cases speaking a "foreign" language to the power brokers.

1. That's quite true, but raises the question of why, with ourselves so dependent on them, we didn't just follow them down. Something obviously changed.

A smaller population is "cheaper" for a start. Secondly we joined a wider europe which took up some of the shortfall. Even so by the 70/80's we were really struggling. IE Broke as fook. The real change you put in the 60's actually came in the 90's. see below.

2. It doesn't explain our performance relative to the rest of the world.

The EEC/EU threw huge wads of cash at us to build infrastructure. We had a young educated population who spoke english and were relatively cheap to hire(them were the days on two counts), so were attractive to US multinationals who set up shop here. Again the smaller population had a big effect. The UK had a multitude more multinationals, but with a population 15 times larger the effect was much less. EG Intel and Dell employed a huge proportion of Dubliners(along with support industries). The same two plants in London would make up a tiny fraction of employment by comparison.

maninasia · 25-10-2013 10:03AM

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

It's not as though Irish people were loyal to the land. Irish people couldn't wait to vamoose out of here in the 19th century. But, there being nothing in the urban centres, they left for Scotland, and Liverpool, and further afield.

I don't know is it your phrasing or your thought processes, but this statement seems particularly odd.

What does loyal to the land mean? What land? Most Catholics had no land or tiny plots due to penal laws and massive population growth. Or do you mean you are 'loyal to Ireland' by staying in Ireland?

Of course they had to go somewhere else to survive and prosper, especially during the famine period, I don't understand the need to refer to their loyalty.

Cody Pomeray · 25-10-2013 10:55AM

Wibbs wrote: »

Industrial revolutions happen in some places and not others for all sorts of reasons. They don't require established cities either. They can spring up around natural resources. Dublin's main resource was it's port and that's about it.

It didn't continue to grow for all sorts of reasons. It's relative wealth may well have been one of them. They could afford to import, rather than try to build the means of manufacture locally(with the exception of beer ). Plus even though the British controlled Ireland to a large degree, it was still a land not fully under control with low level dissent going on with pockets of actual insurrection from time to time, so that's hardly attractive to potential investors from the wider UK.

But the British ruling class heavily invested in immovable assets like property and land, in some of the most hostile regions - which were not, actually, all that hostile.

There is no obvious reason why Dublin, in particular, being very attractive to British or Anglo-Irish property investment during the peak of the industrial revolution, was so unattractive to industrial investment.

The UK had more reserves of coal and iron and more infrastructure because of the population

But it's not even a matter of growing more slowly. Irish industry actually decreased throughout the 19th century, including, most confusingly, iron and steel production. Many people don't understand how important the textile industry was south of the (then, non extant) border during the 19th century. Textiles were the backbone of Irish industry, and yet suffered enormous decline.

Agriculture declined, as it tends to do during a famine, but was less badly affected than Irish industry.

So not only did Ireland have the population in urban centres, as we have seen, it also had had industrial infrastructure that actually went into decline during the era of the industrial revolution.

Look at Scotland in the industrial revolution. It's centers of that boom were pretty much the closest to England). It simply had a larger preindustrial base to start with.

I don't believe Scotland had a larger 'pre-industrial base' than Ireland during the 18th century. And Aberdeen, which was much further north than any of them, saw massive population growth and industrial expansion. Bigger than Edinburgh, in fact.

We can speculate all we like, but these vague speculations often turn to mush when you look at the empirical facts as they relate to Ireland from 1790 onwards. The case of Ireland, and why it under-performed, and then why it performed unexpectedly well, are important questions that deserve more than an often-regurgitated narrative of the sequence of events (famine/ agricultural production/ weak infrastructure/ disaffection/ civil war/ independence/ protectionism/ liberal trade/ EEC) which never actually seem to question why policy shifts occurred.

maninasia wrote: »

What does loyal to the land mean? What land? Most Catholics had no land or tiny plots due to penal laws and massive population growth. Or do you mean you are 'loyal to Ireland' by staying in Ireland?

I am saying that there was no loyalty to land, should someone raise that as a reason for weak urban growth.
I don't know how you could possibly have interpreted that as being a slight to emigrants, but I am not surprised.

kupus · 25-10-2013 12:05PM

But it's not even a matter of growing more slowly. Irish industry actually decreased throughout the 19th century, including, most confusingly, iron and steel production. Many people don't understand how important the textile industry was south of the (then, non extant) border during the 19th century. Textiles were the backbone of Irish industry, and yet suffered enormous decline.

It slowed because the british put a huge tax on trade in ireland for everything.....

here take a look at these
http://www.libraryireland.com/JoyceHistory/Restrictions.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool_Act_1699
Yes I know its the 17th century but it continued unabated for the following centuries in differnet trades.

MRnotlob606 · 16-11-2013 03:25PM

the fact we send our troops on peace keeping trips to places where other western countries exploited

Billy86 · 16-11-2013 05:15PM

Banjo String wrote: »

How to make a decent cup of tay, and serve decent sausages for breakfast.

I've been in Australia before. Spain too.

That's my two cents.

Then you also understand.

What the f*** is wrong with those people and their cardboard sausage fetish!?

NiallSparky wrote: »

What countries have you visited that are far better to live in?

Australia for a start. Despite the sausage thing.

General General wrote: »

Conservative Roman Catholicism as an ideology pays off, provided you are in Northern Europe.

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

yeah but we're disproportionately better. It's pretty remarkable, actually, but I accept the "everything is sh1te" banner is always in the back of the hot press, ready to be pulled out when anyone mentions Ireland in terms of world living standards.

I would imagine Ireland in 1913 was higher on the list than Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Yet all of those rank ahead of us today.

I am also not certain on this, but wasn't Norway somewhat of a poor backwater around 100 years ago, having only regained independence from Sweden in 1905?

Taiwan is only two spots behind us at #14, UAE at #18 and South Korea at #19. Compared to 100 years ago I would imagine they have experienced FAR bigger leaps, relatively speaking, than us - http://www.businessinsider.com/wond-economist-where-to-be-born-index-2013-1

Lapin · 16-11-2013 05:37PM

About 350 different words to describe being drunk.

Billy86 · 16-11-2013 05:40PM

Lapin wrote: »

About 350 different words to describe being drunk.

Less that 1/4 of which are actual words.

16-11-2013 07:15PM

clairefontaine wrote: »

Storytelling.

Is it genetic or something? Where does it come from?

Usually a combination of poor literacy/illiteracy and poverty.

If you can't transcribe your history and stories and/or are so powerless that the powers that be are uninterested in preserving or even knowing your culture, the only way of keeping them alive is by passing on the information orally.

The embodiment of this tradition in Ireland was the Seanchai who went from town to town passing on gossip, stories and history. A nation without any other means of telling it's stories becomes a nation of storytellers.

Seanchai literally means 'bearer of old lore'. They were the social historians of their time.

There are similar systems of passing and retaining stories and information in other societies with similar limitations for preserving histories.

Smidge · 16-11-2013 07:30PM

A very simple thing but it would be how to make a DECENT sandwich.
I have never had a sandwich abroad the could hold a candle to a sandwich here.

Billy86 · 16-11-2013 07:41PM

Smidge wrote: »

A very simple thing but it would be how to make a DECENT sandwich.
I have never had a sandwich abroad the could hold a candle to a sandwich here.

Australia and America, depending on what you're after. Sandwich is a pretty vague description, to be honest!

Australians love sandwiches in Turkish bread which in indescribably amazing) while the Americans pastrami sandwiches done right are incredible - the one in Katz's New York (When Harry Met Sally orgasm scene) is possibly the best sandwich I've ever had. One of the only places with that kind of reputation that lived up to it http://foodtruckfestivalsofne.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/pastrami.jpeg

Smidge · 16-11-2013 07:45PM

Billy86 wrote: »

Australia and America, depending on what you're after. Sandwich is a pretty vague description, to be honest!

Australians love sandwiches in Turkish bread which in indescribably amazing) while the Americans pastrami sandwiches done right are incredible - the one in Katz's New York (When Harry Met Sally orgasm scene) is possibly the best sandwich I've ever had. One of the only places with that kind of reputation that lived up to it http://foodtruckfestivalsofne.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/pastrami.jpeg

Never been to Australia or Katz deli so can't comment but anytime I had a sandwich in other parts of the States was never impressed.
I love samwiches

road_high · 16-11-2013 07:48PM

When I have work colleagues over from England they cannot get over the Deli/Hot Deli counters here! Think in the UK a lot of shops just do pre-packed stuff. Also they rate the food very highly in general.

Stojkovic · 16-11-2013 08:09PM

Smidge wrote: »

Never been to Australia or Katz deli so can't comment but anytime I had a sandwich in other parts of the States was never impressed.
I love samwiches

Agreed.
Every American sangwich has to have cheese in it. Ask them for no cheese and it confuses the fcuk out of the poor dopes.

deseil · 16-11-2013 09:01PM

Hurling best game in the world It would take about 100 years of playing for any other country to come up to our standards, its in the blood!!

General General · 16-11-2013 09:28PM

Billy86 wrote: »

I was suggesting that if we were considered a great success, then one of the reasons might have been that we were in the 'sweet spot' of being conservative Roman Catholic && northern European.

Y'know.. 'cause that's what we were.

cloud493 · 16-11-2013 09:35PM

That Ireland is actually a fine little country, and for all the whinging people stay because they actually like it here/

road_high · 16-11-2013 10:28PM

cloud493 wrote: »

That Ireland is actually a fine little country, and for all the whinging people stay because they actually like it here/

I agree. The influx of migrants (and still many coming/staying) over the past 15 years has been telling. Any of them I've spoken to about coming here are very positive to the country in my experience. They love the standard of living here and seem to like the Irish people.

rolliepoley · 16-11-2013 11:01PM

Wotsername wrote: »

5. This is the most important step..... DO NOTHING!

Billy86 · 17-11-2013 01:41AM

General General wrote: »

I was suggesting that if we were considered a great success, then one of the reasons might have been that we were in the 'sweet spot' of being conservative Roman Catholic && northern European.

Y'know.. 'cause that's what we were.

It's just an idea I disagree with, given that the rise our prosperity came at almost exactly in line with the fall of the Catholic church's popularity here (relatively speaking, of course).

maninasia · 17-11-2013 09:25AM

road_high wrote: »

When I have work colleagues over from England they cannot get over the Deli/Hot Deli counters here! Think in the UK a lot of shops just do pre-packed stuff. Also they rate the food very highly in general.

Most of the food in the pubs and service stations in the UK can only be described as muck. The reason for that is that the UK is dominated by chains who reduce costs to the bare minimum by processing the food to hell and freezing it for long-term storage.

maninasia · 17-11-2013 09:37AM

Billy86 wrote: »

What the f*** is wrong with those people and their cardboard sausage fetish!?
Taiwan is only two spots behind us at #14, UAE at #18 and South Korea at #19. Compared to 100 years ago I would imagine they have experienced FAR bigger leaps, relatively speaking, than us - http://www.businessinsider.com/wond-economist-where-to-be-born-index-2013-1

Ireland had a very good infrastructure and civil service structure around the time of independence compared to most of the world. It's not done so well at all, especially if you knows that millions of Irish were forced to emigrate over the last century or so (yes forced due to poverty).

Dublin has an awesome tram system and Ireland had a very extensive rail network at the turn of the last century, most of it was dismantled.

Since then what have we built. Only recently were the motorways implemented (EU supported), the rail network depends on the leftovers from colonial times, and we only have a couple of tramlines put back into Dublin that qualifies as 'new', although part of it runs on the old tram line network.

As for Taiwan and South Korea, it's true that they experienced some of the longest periods of sustained growth every seen by any nation (read Breakout Nations, a good book on the subject). They both came from very low levels. Korea in particular was devastated following it's civil war, and anybody over 60 likely grew up very poor, I know some Koreans who never ate any meat until they were adults. It was the same in Taiwan, where practically nobody ate beef because they need the cows to work the fields (yes I know the same happened to some extent in Ireland..but again I know some in-laws who basically wore clothes made from sacks when they were kids and survived on US Aid corn).

Go to Taiwan or Korea today and you will see that their infrastructure such as subways, roads and high speed trains far surpass anything in Ireland. Their medical systems are also better, especially Taiwan's with it's national insurance system. Taiwan will have almost full digitization of medical records within the next 3 years (it already has a national chipped card medical system for 10 years) and much of it's government business is conducted online. The same with Korea, Korea of course has the fastest and best broadband networks in the world and is a leader in many industries like car manufacturing and electronics.

These countries also have issues regarding labour compensation, working hours, pollution etc...but they have come MUCH farther than Ireland in much less time.

maninasia · 17-11-2013 09:39AM

Stojkovic wrote: »

Agreed.
Every American sangwich has to have cheese in it. Ask them for no cheese and it confuses the fcuk out of the poor dopes.

That's cos you were looking for sangwiches.
Everybody knows you can't bate a hangwich and a decent cup o' tae.

maninasia · 17-11-2013 09:42AM

Wibbs wrote: »

Well two things would spring to mind for me. What left us poor in 1900 ironically helped us in the long term. Namely we didn't get the industrial revolution that the rest of the UK had. Except for(as you point out) the small areas of the North of the country, we were an agrarian society largely unchanged in local industry for centuries. The UK had such large industries, but when they went bang the rest of the country really felt it. Ireland on the other hand had no such industries, so no such steep losses. It also left us in a good position to take advantage of newly emerging industries like IT/remote banking. We were/are a blank slate by comparison

Secondly and again ironically, emigration. Because of the industrial revolution people moved from country to towns. We had no such towns locally so had to go overseas. This kept our population low and increased our presence in the wider world. In the UK by comparison, people had towns and cities to move to and when industry died down they had nowhere to go. The cities got bigger and bigger as did the population(The UK has well over ten times the population of Ireland). Plus although emigration rightfully gets the headlines, it can be a two way street. IE people can and do come back and bring a wider world skillset with them. This happened in the "boom" and in the years before it. It happened further back too. EG of me and my peers growing up many of them had parents(inc my dad, and assorted rellies) that had lived overseas for a time before they returned to Ireland.

My take anyway.

I don't get it, you are saying we are a great success because large parts of our population had to leave.

That's some BS Wibbs.

We are also not particularly well-off if you take borrowing accumulating to our national debt into account and our lack of 21st century infrastructure. infrastructure in Ireland is ****e including broadband, trains, much of the roads, crap buses, no subways etc.

What can the world learn from Ireland?

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