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I grew up in Ireland and it was still very conservative and religious back in the late 70s to the late 80s of my youth. We only legalised divorce in 1997! But
by jahnu 5y ago
I grew up in Ireland and it was still very conservative and religious back in the late 70s to the late 80s of my youth. We only legalised divorce in 1997!
But since then there has been a sea change in attitudes. Marriage equality, abortion on demand, an openly gay man as premier. Little backlash against migrants even when the economy tanked in 07-08. But this did not cause much in the way of estrangement. Indeed I have seen the older generations change too, not just put up with things.
I can only speculate as to why. I think partly because people started to travel and see how things were better in other more enlightened countries and imported those values to Ireland. Life was also improving for most people as an amazing rate which leaves little reason to look for people to blame for things. The church destroyed it's own standing by being totally uncompromising in its attitude to change and covering up abuse.
I believe Ireland also looked on in horror at American politics descending into a complete shit-show with scant respect for the principles it once stood for. You must understand that up till the 90s most Irish thought the USA was the pinnacle of western society. We still hold great affection for the people in general and artistic culture and landscape but the toxic politics, uncompromising religious attitudes and so on are something we view as having held us back in the past and once we abandoned that or at least compromised we made progress.
Anyway, this is just a bit of a brain dump of one point of view. Take it as it is ;)
- cogman10 5y agoI mean, 70s and 80s was the peak of the troubles. Things didn't really settle down until '00. I have to wonder how much the violence of the last few decades impacted ireland and the nations ability to just accept "the other".
- jahnu 5y agoIt must surely have had an effect. Hard to really say what though. However, in the Republic the troubles were almost always a thing that happened "up north" and didn't really have any bearing on day to day life in the south for the vast majority of the people. To illustrate how little people of the Republic cared about religion; I was raised Catholic and my best friend in high school was an Irish protestant and I didn't even know that about him for 3 years! And not because it was taboo, but because it was uninteresting to us. In my experience by the early 90s, religion or nationality was just not high up the list of things that defined people. E.g. lots of English people moved to Ireland in the 90s as it became a more desirable place to live and found themselves welcomed. (I'm speaking generally, I'm sure some people had negative experiences and don't wish to diminish that). The Irish struggled a bit more with immigration from more different cultures and racism is a challenge everywhere but compared to many other European countries Ireland is on a better path I would say. I'm rambling a little, but to your question about how the troubles shaped Irish attitudes it's worth noting as a result of the Belfast (good Friday) Agreement our constitution does acknowledge every citizens right to define their own identity. Also, here's an interesting story about how Irish view the "other" today https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jul/14/pitching-up-ancient-sports-for-irelands-most-ethnically-diverse-town https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jul/14/pitching-up-anc...