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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 29, 2017 10:47:20 GMT
It's a funny thing...I completely agree with you on a theoretical level. I think rural life is morally, spiritually and culturally superior to city and suburban life. I think every nation should idealize (yes, I said idealize and I know what it means) its countryside. And yet I've always felt I belong in the city.
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Post by cato on Jul 30, 2017 14:23:50 GMT
I was planning to post a list of all the things I like about living in Dublin. The list was a personal account of why I find this place of earth interesting,intriguing and for the moment home.
Almost every conservative values the domestic the familar the local. I have lived most of my life in rural settings and see the advantages of life there too. I just dont't want or wish to live there but don't see any need to look down on or despise rural Ireland.
There is a famous quote from Sherlock Holmes about how deceptive the rural tranquil landscape can be ... I ll see if I can unearth it.
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Post by kj on Aug 24, 2017 13:26:52 GMT
Apologies to the Dubs here, but I think this article nails a lot about antipathy to the capital: www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/why-i-m-glad-i-can-t-afford-to-live-in-dublin-1.3193536But what I found most interesting was the almost schizo attitude of the writer: he laments that the Dublin skyline isn't like other glass box European capitals, and also views things like Starbucks as markers of advanced civilisation. It nicely captures the confusion in Irish identity and "aspirations".
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 24, 2017 14:45:32 GMT
It is indeed a bizarre article. I don't see how the cityscape would be improved by skyscrapers. And it's funny that the author shares the cultural cringe of the people who he's criticizing, at least when it comes to the Catholic Church.
His comment about GAA may be true. Personally I'm deeply conflicted when it comes to the GAA. Maybe being from Dublin has something to do with that. I don't know. I'm all in favour of the GAA in principle, and my heart leaps at the sight of kids playing hurley. But just walking into a room where GAA is on TV or radio dampens my spirit. I think it's the Sunday factor. I associate GAA games with having to go back to school next day. I also associate them with drizzle, the smell of cabbage, empty stadia, commentators with poor elocution...oh goodness, I'd better stop...!
I do tend to forget that there is any Ireland outside Dublin, though.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 24, 2017 14:56:52 GMT
I sympathise with this comment somebody left:
Brilliant piece. I am Dub and many of us loath the stage Dub. It's a role you're expected to play but one I and many others flee from. I stopped going to Dublin matches years ago because of what the Hill supporters had become with their English style soccer chants. Our country cousins have kept our language, culture and sports alive, don't think we haven't noticed and are eternally grateful for it.
I don't know about the "stage Dub" part. I don't know about the "English style soccer chants", since I haven't been to a Dublin match since the eighties. But I do agree with the last sentence.
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Post by servantofthechief on Aug 24, 2017 19:22:22 GMT
I think by 'Stage Dub', and I am completely guessing here, that the commenter is alluding to Dubliner's 'putting up a false front', in the sense of going along with expected societal norms as according to Soulless globalism. I actually do wonder how many good and honest Dubliners just try to keep their head down but are utterly sick of this sort of carry on.
I visited Dublin once some years ago, and behind the modern veneer, you do find old hints and allegations of its former, humble glory.
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Post by servantofthechief on Aug 24, 2017 19:24:04 GMT
‘I don’t go to mass, have never voted Fianna Fáil and have never been to a GAA match,’
At this point I'd ask if she was from County Antrim.
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Post by ZenoOfCitium on Aug 30, 2017 10:40:45 GMT
That Irish Times article was revealing the reaction to it: the self-regard of a particular sub-set of Dublin residents (for short-hand we'll say the Irish Times types) is particularly fragile.
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Post by Young Ireland on Oct 7, 2017 13:15:22 GMT
I think that many in rural Ireland dislike Dublin because so much power in concentrated there with little to show for it in return. All that one needs to do is look at how many rural towns are still struggling despite the recovery, or the mentality common in the elites that centralisation is more efficient (see the abolition of the town councils and their replacement with the meaningless "municipal districts" or the various quangos that have been formed in recent years). Yet all this has done is make people more apathetic towards government, when in fact we should be encouraging greater political participation.
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Post by ClassicalRepublican on Oct 11, 2017 12:50:08 GMT
Dublin did not come from Irish culture. Deep in the psyche, we know it is not ours; it is something that has been left for us by the people against whom we measure our identity by insisting we are different from. Even Dubliners hate Dublin. Especially the aforesaid orcs. We litter. We spit our chewing gum. Our buildings have moats and cast iron palisades. It's the best piece of evidence for the claim that the Irish are incapable of the civic virtue essential to underpin a republic.
As an incorporated town, it was illegal for a catholic to live within five miles of its boundary before emancipation. This also feeds into a kind of cultural memory of antagonism and animosity towards the place. Today it is beset with post-modern vandals who build like the very worst children at playing lego - bits sticking out of buildings all higglety-pigglety.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 11, 2017 13:02:59 GMT
Even Dubliners hate Dublin. Yup.
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Post by servantofthechief on Oct 11, 2017 21:24:46 GMT
Dublin did not come from Irish culture. Deep in the psyche, we know it is not ours; it is something that has been left for us by the people against whom we measure our identity by insisting we are different from. Even Dubliners hate Dublin. Especially the aforesaid orcs. We litter. We spit our chewing gum. Our buildings have moats and cast iron palisades. It's the best piece of evidence for the claim that the Irish are incapable of the civic virtue essential to underpin a republic. As an incorporated town, it was illegal for a catholic to live within five miles of its boundary before emancipation. This also feeds into a kind of cultural memory of antagonism and animosity towards the place. Today it is beset with post-modern vandals who build like the very worst children at playing lego - bits sticking out of buildings all higglety-pigglety. Speaking as a Northerner here, and while I obviously have my disagreements with CR here about republicanism, civics and the like, I think this is actually not true. Dublin isn't a case example that Irishmen lack the civic virtue needed for a republic to work (Insert witticism about how any system reliant on the mass to be well behaved is conceptually flawed here), I think there's actually something deeper at play here because what we see in Dublin isn't actually universal across Ireland. Take the island's second biggest city, that of Belfast. The streets are clean (relatively) no one puts gum on the ground, or so rarely you would be hard pressed to notice any on the sidewalks, graffiti is few and far between, and the more complex ones are usually left alone because they look nice (may be a hangover from the Mural culture of Belfast and the North in general) segregation exists between the communities but its working so well that when both traditions mingle in the public areas of Belfast, there is actually little to no friction, which is amazing when you consider the place was constantly on the verge of an ethnic civil war a few decades ago. And its not that our local governments simple govern their regions better (HAHAHAHAHA, no). I was actually shocked when I visited Dublin some years ago and I couldn't go five steps without stepping over hundreds of gum pieces plastered all over the footpaths, the class division is egregious, even by my traditionalist and monarchist standards, when there is no real actual 'class' about them (class divisions here in the North are obvious but never stated openly, both rich and poor golf at the same golf clubs for example, but maybe that's my countryside bias talking here). I actually left the city feeling sorry for it, when I had went to the place expecting it to be a den of vipers anyway. I expected a dolled up harlot but found a duchess in rags. I think Dublin is sick, in a way, and its people have no respect for it because they have no respect for themselves, not because they lack any capacity to be good or great. The Northerners certainly are not a 'better breed' of people in comparison, but probably have more self respect for themselves and their property. Then again, I suppose it makes sense Dubliners don't respect Dublin given how many there have been raised to buy and sell property and never make a house a home. I mean it is already seeing all the signs of decay and destitution that we are already seeing in so many other 'great cities' around the West
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 11, 2017 22:20:56 GMT
I expected a dolled up harlot but found a duchess in rags. Nicely put! Wow, as a lifelong Dubliner, that's quite an outsider's perspective! It's just my normal, so I don't see it, but I imagine you're right. The thing you mentioned that resonates with me the most is the class divisions. It really does seem like a very stratified city.
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Post by Antaine on Oct 12, 2017 8:05:58 GMT
Look, I'm just going to be rudely blunt - if there weren't so many junkies and scumbags allowed to wander town with ease, people would have a lot more respect for it. In a lot of parts of town you'll find the absolute dregs of society not-so-subtly talking about buying drugs, clearly off their heads slowly moving about like zombies, harassing people at bus stops for "change" (they're always fairly intimidating looking guys who do it too, and some look like they're dying for their next fix - overly-sweaty skin and aggressively miserable expressions on their faces), and probably other things besides I can't think of now.
Only on Sunday I was walking by a bus stop when some guy asked me for change. I barely glanced at him and shook my head. He then tried to walk closer to me, almost as if he was going to block my path, so I shot him an unfriendly look which caused him to make an awkward laugh before backing off. Another day while walking to my bus stop, I ended up walking a guy that was acting really weird and I assume was on drugs (in fact, I think I saw him another day too acting the same way.) He kept walking strange, his trousers were sagged to around his thighs, he made strange faces at a lot of people who walked by him, and when I got to the stop he got into a fight with the actual bus stop itself. He also dropped a load of pamphlets, so I'm not sure what that was all about. To make matters worse, a lot of these people are allowed to use public transport, which makes people feel even worse because then you're in an enclosed space with them.
Anyway, long-rant-short, it may not solve anything, but if we had less scumbags wandering the streets of Dublin, I guarantee things would at least be better. Who could be bothered with a town that seems like a beacon for some of the worst people this country has to offer? Besides that, everyone knows that if you were to get into trouble with one of them and get injured, the courts in this country would fail to give them a decent punishment; yet if I knocked the head off one of them in self-defence, then all Hell would break loose.
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Post by Antaine on Oct 12, 2017 8:47:01 GMT
Correction 1: I was walking WITH a guy, not walking a guy
Correction 2: I should have said "it may not solve much" instead of "anything", as I contradict myself immediately afterwards.
Also, in regards to Maolsheachlann's description of the scanger on the previous page, I would go a step further and say that in some extreme cases, the scanger will talk as if half their jaw is hanging off their face.
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