My view of Irish society
This section of my website is a rant- nothing short of a rant- on the topic of Ireland. Having spent some time traveling in Europe, before moving to Korea, I think I have the perspective required to realize that Ireland really is a second rate country.
While there are many good, and bad, things to say about Ireland, I will focus on some of the negatives: courtesy, customer service, the media, and what you might call intellectualism. In short, Ireland strikes me as being populated by ignorant people, who don¡¯t even understand the concept of service, let alone provide it, and wouldn¡¯t know an open-minded discussion if it hit them in the face. Of course, this is a generalization, and there are Irish people who are not like this (I¡¯m one of them J ), but I¡¯m talking in general terms here.
Ireland is, ostensibly, the ¡®land of the 100,000 welcomes¡¯. This is a myth. Just as some hack remarked that De Valera¡¯s comely maidens dancing at the crossroads are now working in call centres, and the athletic men are selling mobile phones, the ¡®100,000 welcomes¡¯ of old have been replaced with an arrogant sneer that encapsulates all that is wrong with Ireland.
As I do in most of this website, I mix my experiences with well-documented stories. To that end, I find myself comparing Ireland, where manners seem to be out of fashion, to Korea, where being polite is not just common, but obligatory behaviour. This is not so much of a much, as we¡¯re talking about people holding doors open for others, saying hello, please, and thanks, or even just holding someone¡¯s bag if that person is weighed down with luggage on a bus or train. These things are normal to me, but surprisingly rare in Ireland.
Of course, Koreans take manners much further. If I am being served food or drink, I must use both hands to take it, unless the person serving me is younger than I am. As ¡®sang sing min¡¯, that is a teacher, when I meet a new student, he or she will bow to the waist, unless we¡¯re talking about a child, in which case, the student bows until his or her head is at about knee level.
It galls me that so many Irish people seem incapable of saying please, or thanks. These words are so useful, that even from a selfish point of view, they are worth using. When in Europe, I saw lots of Irish, English and American people who were extremely ignorant to foreigners. Mind you, the sentiment is often returned in spades, as was the case when one Spanish restaurant manager refused to serve my friends and I until he was convinced we weren¡¯t English. The fact he didn¡¯t know where Ireland was was beside the point. I insisted on being very polite. Why?? It should be obvious, although my experience is that many Irish people wouldn¡¯t be able to explain my reasons for tipping the guy about 50 percent (I never tip less than 20 percent). Showing respect to other people is a very logical way of behaving, as these people think more of you if you are a bit polite to them. Mind you, many Irish people don¡¯t seem to give a toss one way or the other.
Irish people strike me as being like a group of Americans I saw at the Koln Dom, in Germany. The Dom, a monstrous cathedral, is still used for services, when priests bar the doors to all tourists. Now, maybe it was just me, but if I see a church, with people inside it, singing hymns, and men in red robes standing in front of the doors, I assume that I¡¯m not going to be able to walk up to the alter, and sort of say ¡®Hang on a minute, I want to take a few pictures¡¯. Not the average American, Irish person or Briton, seemingly. These people were (honestly) extremely annoyed at being told that they couldn¡¯t walk into a church, in the middle of a mass, with cameras and camcorders. I find that behaviour staggeringly insulting.
I walked up to a priest, and mangled the German language by saying ¡®Guten Abend, Vater, wann kann Man in Dom gehen?¡¯ Apart from the fact that a good guidebook will include this sort of phrase, it¡¯s common courtesy to at least be able to say ¡®hello¡¯ in the local language.
Ignorance is commonplace in Ireland. Try to get a polite response in a Dublin pub. You¡¯ve got more chance of catching a fish in the river Liffey (to put that in perspective, when the ¡®Millenium Clock¡¯ was put in the Liffey to mark the time left to the year 2000, it had to be removed because pollution in the river obscured the clock face.
As an aside, many Irish, American and British newspapers reported that the Y2K compliancy issue, or the so-called millennium bug, was a farce. Many people in these countries ranted about the ¡®rip-off¡¯ that was Y2K. As they argued, nothing happened, so it was all a lie. Really? I think this is an example of the crappy reporting that is the norm for the Irish and US media. Y2K, or the millennium bug, was dealt with by the Y2K project, the most expensive project in human history. During the 24 hours that the world passed into the year 2000, every major European airline grounded its fleet. The USA and Russia stood at DefCon 2, one step away from war, and on the stroke of midnight, 31 December 1999, the entire Russian missile defense system tried to launch its missiles (without the codes normally required). This old system had been replaced with a Y2K-compliant version, but the original one was attached to a simulator that replaced the real nukes. Japan had to shut down its nuclear power plants, as the first three such plants to pass through the Y2K deadline went critical, and would have exploded if their reactors had not been shut down.
So, what we have here is a situation where Y2K would have caused the Russians to nuke Europe and America, and Japan would have been rather drastically changed, but the Irish and US media reported that it was all a hoax, or a sham, and (in reality) harmless. This is astoundingly bad reporting, in my not-so-humble opinion. Yet Irish people are told that we have a fantastic media. Told by whom?? Well, the Irish media, mainly.
While we¡¯re on the topic of a flawed media, let¡¯s wander into the related issue of just how little the average Irish person knows about the world. While it¡¯s a common habit to sneer the Americans (who really do tend to know very little about the world, God love the poor dears), many Irish people take pride in the ¡®unique¡¯ treasure that lies underground at Newgrange, all the time being unaware that there is a similar grave at Abu Simbal in Egypt. Most Irish people are unaware of this, yet sneer the Yanks for not having a clue about the world.
Of course, to be fair, I should mention that there really are some amazingly silly Americans. Amongst my favourite American stupidities are ¡®Why is there no glass in the windows in the Colliseum?¡¯ (I felt like punching that person), ¡®Why didn¡¯t they tell me there are so many people in Europe?¡¯ (That one was in the Sistine Chapel, and I did hit the person who said it), ¡®Are you going to take a Greyhound? (bus)¡¯ (to a person living in America, but going home to Ireland the week after), ¡®We don¡¯t need any international dialing codes in America¡¯ (to an Irish person who was explaining that ¡®+¡¯ in a phone number refers to the international dialing code), and, lastly, ¡®It¡¯s a camera, you point it at me and press the button. It¡¯ll take pictures¡¯ (the probably not sarcastic comment made to me by a tourist asking me to take a picture of his family).
I suppose the crowning glory of American mental deficiency is, to an English person: ¡®You¡¯re from the UK? Wow, you speak real good English for a foreigner¡¯. (From Bill Bryson¡¯s ¡®The lost continent¡¯). I can recommend that book as Bryson is an American, living in England, who differs from most American writers who could have a full frontal lobotomy, and notice no change in their lifestyle. If I may digress totally, I just want to quote Bryson¡¯s classic ¡®One of the stores was called ¡®The Cutest Little Store in Town¡¯, which made me want to have The Quickest Little Puke in the County.
Along with Stephen King (we salute you, oh dark master), James Herbert (he of the obsession with rats) and Dean Koontz (an American who writes like a syphilictic Englishman speaks, but produces good work), Bryson is one of the few writers who is consistent in his work..
OK¡¦.. I started this rant by talking about Irish ignorance, and have, so far, talked about Russian nuclear missiles, my students in Korea, the temple at Abu Simbal, and that remark ¡®We don¡¯t need international dialing codes in America¡¯- a comment that can still make me laugh more than a year later. My ramblings make Grandpa Simpson seem coherent.
Back on track: apart from being ignorant, Irish people, generally, give atrocious customer service. Living in Ireland, I took it for granted that most staff, in any business, would barely look at me (or any customer), and rarely speak. Late trains and buses are the norm, because of ¡®what the English did to us¡¯. Really? Go to Prague, and you¡¯ll see a metro system that humiliates Ireland. Luas, Dublin¡¯s tram system, is over budget, late and doesn¡¯t work properly, yet every decent European city has a tram system which makes a mockery of Luas. The DART (rail system in Dublin) is a disgrace, yet small Eastern European countries have a better system, despite the stupidities of communism. Funnily, most of those countries had two world wars, centuries of dictatorship, and the Soviets, yet Ireland has received billions of Euros from the EU. Despite this, Irish people seem incapable of getting a train to run on time.
I had to laugh when I was on a train from Denmark to Germany, which was late by about two minutes. This lateness was despite the fact that the train had been loaded onto a ferry to get to Germany in the first place, and had been traveling for at least five hours. The apology made to all passengers was in three languages, and included the remarkable ¡®We hope you can understand the reasons for our lateness, although we know you will never forgive this atrocity¡¯, or words to that effect. I remember the reference to an ¡®atrocity¡¯. Compare this to Ireland, where I once kept a record of sorts of about 10 or 15 train journeys of about one hour each. In one trip, the train broke down three times, and we eventually reached our destination over two hours late, yet no apology was forthcoming. Going on the basis that being ten minutes late was acceptable, none of the trains were on time (that is less than ten minutes late).
I complained to Bus Eireann about a bus that was five hours late, and got no answer. I reported Bus Eireann (the state bus company) to the Minister for Transport, and was sent a copy of an order from the Irish government, instructing Bus Eireann to explain the delay in that journey. They did, about three months later, and told me that Luas works were causing a 15-minute delay in Dublin. Compare that to Switzerland, where the Minister for Transport had to resign because the trains were running two minutes late. Better yet, compare it to the 13 countries in Europe that I traveled in during 2003, where one train was late (in Italy, so what do you expect?). We¡¯re not talking about being a bit late here. That would be acceptable. Irish people seem to think that lateness is normal, even when it is an annoyance we shouldn¡¯t have to tolerate.
Apart from lateness, Irish customer service is generally incompetent. I¡¯ll make this point by contrasting my experience in Korea with some cases from Ireland. I will be brief, as this is not a self-indulgent monologue. :D
In Korean restaurants tipping is not allowed. If I leave a tip, it¡¯ll be handed back to me. If you¡¯re a foreigner, Koreans will help you with chopsticks, or other aspects of the meal. Equally, when I was left waiting in a restaurant, the customers complained to the manager, because I was not given a chair to sit on (if you wait in Korea, even in a take-away, you¡¯ll be given a chair and a cup of tea). The staff of most Irish restaurants would probably have multiple hernias if they were asked to give a customer a cup of tea while he or she was waiting to be served.
I don¡¯t speak Korean very well, so I often buy something in a supermarket, such as milk or fruit, which is part of a special offer, such as two for the price of one or whatever, without knowing about the offer. This will be pointed out by staff, or other customers who will walk up to me, and take the milk or whatever out of my basket, and put another carton in, if that particular type of product is on offer. Most Irish people would laugh at the idea of telling a foreigner that there were special offers on certain items.
Speaking of Koreans, I just have to include one story from the school where I teach. I turned back from the board to see one student half in, and half out, of a window. Ignoring the comment he was making on my lesson, I pointed directly at him while telling him to sit down (pointing at someone is a huge insult in Korea). I also shouted a fair bit, as he had been interrupting the class for a long time. The student responded by putting his school bag over his head, and sitting like for the rest of the class. He also told his father, who made him apologise to every teacher and the school director, as in his opinion, I was correct to discipline the student, who had disrupted the class and disgraced the entire school. In Ireland, teachers get punched by students, and can¡¯t say anything because the poor little dears, or their parents, would sue the school.
In the normal Korean class student participation can be taken for granted, and the average student can learn at a frightening pace. One of my students, aged about 12, was able to read a Stephen King book I left lying on a table. Of course, Ireland does not compare, in my opinion. I once gave a class of college students an exam with Russian words in the text, as I reasoned that the exam related to the internet, and an internet-savvy student should be able to use a search engine to translate the Russian text. The students told me this was inappropriate, as I should have written ¡®look up this thing in a search engine¡¯, if I wanted to test their ability to use the internet.
I eventually had to tell them the answers,, and write the exam on the board, as none of the students were able to do the exam. And Irish people call Americans stupid?
It¡¯s time to get back to customer service in Ireland, or the lack thereof. My experience is that Irish companies give a service that is extraordinarily bad. How many times have you phoned a company on Monday to be told one thing, yet had the company say something else on Tuesday? How many people seem to loath their jobs? How many people are just going through the motions? How many companies have told outright lies to their customers?
This is not the same all over the world. I live in Korea now (no way, they cry, why didn¡¯t you say so before?), so I¡¯ll compare the two countries. In Ireland, working for a major phone company, I tried to arrange for our home phone number to be transferred to our new house. I wanted a particular arrangement, called a soft dial tone, where the engineer would install the equipment, and we could dial a number to start the service, whenever we finally moved into the house. This phone company stalled, and delayed, and mucked things up, so I phoned the customer service department, while accidentally forgetting to tell them I worked in the same company. Needless to add, the lies were funny, as was my response, which was to humiliate the person I was dealing with, by asking him to read such and such a screen on the computer system, and to explain why he had told me one thing, even though another set of facts were sitting right there in front of him.
Compare this wonderful service to Korea, where my director called the phone company on Thursday morning, and my phone line was installed on Friday afternoon. While it was being installed, I asked about getting broadband, so they replaced that line, and installed broadband the following Wednesday, after apologizing for the delay as it should have been installed within 24 working hours (i.e. on Monday). In Ireland, I would probably have had to fill out all sorts of forms, and would have had to wait for a few weeks.
I could include many examples of good service in Korea, and bad service in Ireland, but I¡¯ll limit myself to two, short, stories. In any supermarket I¡¯ve seen, if anyone asks for anything, the staff will spend as much time as is needed to find it. The customer does not join in this search, as that is one of the things the staff are paid for. In Ireland, you¡¯d probably be told it was out of stock. The person you speak to might just wave vaguely in the direction you need to go.
My second example of this sort of thing relates to my laptop, which decided to surprise me with a hard disk failure. In Korea, there were four people working on the laptop, and the first thing they told me was that the hard disk might have to be replaced. They were utterly up front about this. For about the same price as I would have paid in Ireland for a hard disk, I got the disk, Windows XP, Norton anti-Virus (easily 300 Euros for those two), a Korean-English, English-Korean dictionary, and a discount because I paid in cash. The work was done within a day, and they also went through all the settings on the laptop with me, both to show me that it worked, and to set it up the way I wanted. I defy anyone to get the same thing done in Ireland within a week or two.
It really is possible to get good service, and to have companies that work properly. You just have to live outside Ireland.
Now it¡¯s time to dispense with any attempt at rationality, and to rant about the less easily defined aspects of Irish society, in no particular order.
Irish people usually think of themselves as educated, but this is a country where ¡®open-minded discussions¡¯ is a euphemism for what I have dubbed a MAS meeting, or a ¡®mutual appreciation society¡¯. Irish people don¡¯t like ignorance (called using your mind and having an opinion, in some parts of the world). If you disagree with the prevailing attitude, you are most certainly persona non grata. That¡¯s fine in some theocratic Arab dictatorship, like Iran, where football players are banned from having ponytails because this was not acceptable to some rag-tag lunatic who may or may not have been a prophet, but was certainly a savage barbarian, and died a hell of a long time ago. In a self-professed ¡®educated¡¯ country, it is ridiculous to see so many close-minded people.
Irish people are often hypocritical about politics. Without talking too much about a topic that is dear to my heart, and addressed at length elsewhere on this website, I will say a few things. Contrary to the common Irish perception, there is nothing wrong with America trying to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. WMD are banned by UN resolutions, and only those countries with such weapons may have them. This is recognized as international law, and as such, it¡¯s not ¡®only¡¯ America that wants to keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists and madmen.
The invasion of Iraq was justified by UN resolutions. The Irish media is wrong to portray the Iraq war as a case of America lying about WMD, just to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Remember UN Resolution 1441???? The United Nations ordered Iraq to destroy all WMD, or proof that they did not exist. Even though the nukes and anthrax or whatever turned out to be elusive, UNMOVIC concluded that Iraq might well have had WMD, but most certainly had the intention to build a weapons program. Now, some people say that that¡¯s not the same thing, but I say that it is. Conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament would still be a crime, although one must wonder which is better: waiting until the attempt is made, or stopping it when it is only an intention? After all, what¡¯s the meaning of ¡®pre-emptive¡¯?
UN Resolution 1441 was clear: compliance on the part of Iraq, or war. Iraq ¡®had no WMD¡¯, but still launched scud missiles at the coalition forces as they entered Iraq- despite having supposedly destroyed all the scuds in 1998. Another myth which lots of Irish people seem to believe is that Iraq had no links to terrorism. My hairy Irish arse they didn¡¯t. Hussein¡¯s aides had had high-level meetings with associates of Osama bin Laden, in an attempt to establish links between al-Qaeda and Iraq.
So, while Iraq was doing its best to build lethal weapons, it was also trying to work with the organization that has, so far, toppled the twin towers and killed about 3,000 people in New York, caused the worst terrorist atrocity in Spanish history, and given the world the Bali bombing, which had the fifth highest death toll of any terrorist attack in history. I¡¯d say that the ¡®pre-emptive¡¯ strike against Iraq did its job by removing the Iraqi regime before it caused any more harm.
Lots of Irish people are ¡®anti-globalisationists¡¯. They bleat and squeal about ¡®exploitation¡¯ yet live in a country which owes much of its recent economic well-being to globalisation. The mostly left-wing people who oppose globalisation talk about companies that make fortunes by setting up subsidiaries in other countries. This despite the fact that 75 percent of all foreign direct investment (what these people mistakenly call globalisation) takes place in the rich countries of Europe and North America.
Irish people seem to me to be a nation of begrudgers. They don¡¯t seem to recognize effort. Everything is ¡®luck¡¯. From my experience: I got accepted onto my master¡¯s course, and this was ¡®luck¡¯, and had nothing to do with me being a good applicant. When I graduated this was ¡®luck¡¯ and not my hard work and talent. When I applied to two PhD programs and got accepted onto both of them, this was thanks to that ubiquitous luck factor, and not a result of my application. When I decided to withdraw from the PhD, and to focus on teaching, it was pure luck that got me my job in Korea. When I got to present an academic paper, this was luck (it probably was in large part luck). When a mate and myself spent about six weeks traveling around Europe, I was ¡®lucky¡¯.
Well, after spewing 11 pages of vitriol- and invective- laden anti-Irish sentiment, I think I¡¯ve made my point. I also think that I¡¯ve been fair in my criticism of Ireland. While Irish people can point to good things about the country, I doubt that they can defend Irish society from the broad accusations I¡¯ve made here. I say ¡®broad¡¯ because I spoke in general terms, and not in specifics. I used some specific examples but all Irish people should have their own version of my stories. I do not want to make Korea sound like some utopia, but the fact remains that Ireland is, in my opinion, an inferior country. Lastly, this is not a disclaimer, as some liberal types have said characterizes my ramblings. It is a valid point: to know a country is to see what is wrong with that country. As an aside, the only thing liberal about liberals is how liberal they are with their name-calling.