Class in Ireland, 2009

[FutureTaoiseach]

That'd be an interesting bit of research alright. Would you email me on whatever you come up with?

Actually might have to settle with some local authority and Euro constituencies for the moment. Don't know your email but I can pm you.

[DerekOwens]

I wonder how many of those 6,000 writers and journos actually get a living wage out of it?

Not many. I was very lucky education wise (got sent to a good school and did well) and am not well off. I keep my household going, but that's because I bust my backside (despite posting here too often) at it. A journalist needs to be very lucky, very well-connected or very good to make any kind of living from it.
I guess it underlines the difficulty in defining class by occupation. It's more useful in defining people's perceptions, though, which tells you a lot. How would you define class?

[Victor Meldrew]

Threads like this rarely bring out our better sides and invariably descend into pettiness pretty quickly.

But, as social mobility has been destroyed for a large cohort of people, we will see a lot of "mismatched neighbours" when middle-class couples (with young families) find themselves stranded "below their station" with a big mortgage and neighbours and schools that will not deliver for them and will crush their aspirations for their kids.

This may force a change in the "them and us" mentality that previously characterised "Class division" in Ireland during the "boom years". You bought your first house in an area beneath you and then saved and moved so your kids could grow up somewhere nice. You didn't care that no-one did honours level in the community school in your old area, the Gael-school or private school will do the job.

So now it matters that 3 year olds are wandering around at 10 at night, now it matters that the neighbours have domestics on the front lawn, now it matters that there are pole dancers four doors up from you.

Now you might actually want to build a better society and accept that you have to really pour money into the education of the lowest classes as opposed to getting UCD for free.

[Prester Jim]

A lower class person doesn't want to work, believes they are entitled to be supported by the state, never cared for school, doesn't take care of their children, what little money they have they spend on booze and fags, live in a council estate or get rent subsidy and enjoy a fight when they get drunk (which is often), they also think joyriding is a hobby and tend to have children very young (first of many).

They are not working class but an underclass.
A problem arises if a formerly working class area becomes overly populated with those who have no desire to work and often engage in anti-social or criminal activity.

Working class now are divided into the coping class that have low paid jobs (or want to work but are unemployed) and not much social capital, they may have few resources to pull themselves up from their position and some may become underclass especially in the current climate with increasing unemployment.
There is a different set of working class people who do quite well (or did up to recently), they are often tradesmen or women or have pulled themselves up through opening an enterprise.
Middle class unfortunately has a large and growing portion of people who are also coping class as many formerly middle class couples are coping with single or even double unemployment and since individualization one salary is not often enough to live to a comfortable standard.
Upper class is mostly wealth based here although there is certainly a social divide between nouveau and old rich, the more wealth the nouveau have the less of a gap.
Not much difference in effect form the UK.
We just don't acknowledge it as openly.
To my experience the middle class are less snobbish here than England but that may be an artifice of the rapidity of some recent rises in fortune.

[Prester Jim]

Not many. I was very lucky education wise (got sent to a good school and did well) and am not well off. I keep my household going, but that's because I bust my backside (despite posting here too often) at it. A journalist needs to be very lucky, very well-connected or very good to make any kind of living from it.
I guess it underlines the difficulty in defining class by occupation. It's more useful in defining people's perceptions, though, which tells you a lot. How would you define class?

more this than anything else as with so much in Irish life.
Have just heard several new stories of nepotism in VECs that have made my blood boil.

[fionnmccool]

Class seems an exclusive concept and can be only understood as a stereotype to me. If people exclude others or exclude themselves then they would be in their own class in their heads I guess.
I dont think money makes you classy. Neither do I begrudge those who through hard work or talent managed to make money for themselves. My idea of a classy human being is someone who behaves decently and honesty towards his fellow man.

[SAHM]

There is a huge class system alive and well in this Country much to my amusement. The ones's who believe they are a better sort of person due to some intangible reason, and those who don't.

[beanie]

Class seems an exclusive concept and can be only understood as a stereotype to me. If people exclude others or exclude themselves then they would be in their own class in their heads I guess.
I dont think money makes you classy. Neither do I begrudge those who through hard work or talent managed to make money for themselves. My idea of a classy human being is someone who behaves decently and honesty towards his fellow man.

+1

The drug lords have piles of cash, nobody considers them upper class.

[mauvehillgus]

There is a huge class system alive and well in this Country much to my amusement. The ones's who believe they are a better sort of person due to some intangible reason, and those who don't.

A woman I met recently told me that driving past Lidl, that as well as the "Eastern Europeans and the Blacks" she saw "people like us" coming out of it...

I explained that we were nothing alike.

Another See you next Tuesday.

[mauvehillgus]

Just as an aside one can not purchase class or breeding.

Common misconception amongst the "new money".