Ireland - Always the poor mouth -and nothing to show for itself.

Frank Lee Midere

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

That actually angers me a bit tbh. Do those idiots not have an inkling of some of the hell-holes around the world and how their people would give their eye-teeth to have even some of the freedoms we enjoy? Ireland could improve in some ways - I hate the self-loathing but I don't agree with blind praise of the place either, but I feel so ****ing lucky to have been born in this country instead of e.g. Afghanistan.

Don't expect that people like the OP can quote or understand history or the actual world they are living in.

Frank Lee Midere

donegal__road wrote: »

I think you're being a bit overly harsh op... you mentioned in one of your follow up posts, that Ireland has failed to build anything in the last 100 years that would stand out internationally. We are not alone in this regard op... I can't think of any great Belgian or Kiwi feat of structural engineering off hand either..

and there are many other countries you could add to the same list.

Maybe it is because Paddy has been too busy building other country's major construction projects over the last century that we haven't had the time, money or expertise at hand, to create iconic architectural landmarks.
.

Most of the best landmarks in Europe were built prior to 1921. If Parisians were as self flagulating as the Irish they'd probably wonder why all the best buildings in the capital were built before the war.

Frank Lee Midere

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Strange, you asked earlier for someone to come up with examples of Irish architecture of the last 100 years that stands out after dismissing Newgrange and yet then you come up with examples of architecture like the Colosseum (built 2000 years ago), the Kremlin (built in the 15th or 16th century), the Taj Mahal (17th century), Big Ben, Eiffel tower, Picadilly (all 1800s) that defines other countries. The only piece of architecture you mentioned that was actually built in the last 100 years was the Empire State building.

Yes but he's never read a book in his life.

tv_dinner

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

All I ever hear is bitching and moaning about the guards.

well its not like they havent well earned the criticism towards them

besides , criticsm of the guards in the media took about twenty years longer than it did of the church which is odd as the guards were the church,s best and most reliable soldiers

Frank Lee Midere

cloud493 wrote: »

I often wonder, are you Irish unable to feel content and happy, or do you just not want to? Christ, a nation of begrudgers, I thought we in the UK knew how to whinge.

I've never met these guys in real life though except the odd drunk on a Wednesday reeking of piss and stale cigarettes, in my uncles country pub where I worked one summer. The longest and most miserable summer of my life dealing with these chancers. Self hatred masked as hatred of the country.

When productive workers and weekenders came in it cheered up.

leeroybrown

Lapin wrote: »

No defence force. - Our Army, Navy and Air Corps deserve better. They do a great job but by and large, our successive governments don't dive a fuck about them.

My suggestion - Abolish our charade of meaningless neutrality and join NATO now.

So your whole rant is pretty much about having a "real" army then? The rest of it seems like a cover for your militaristic ambitions for world domination.

Joe prim

Lapin wrote: »

I'm trying to get a 21'st century thing going here.

Name one thing Ireland built in the last 100 years that stands out amonst the rest of the world?


One thing ?

De Spire , lovely 'n' shiny an dat.

con___manx1

Lapin wrote: »

Apart from a few dreamers winning Nobel Prizes for Literature and the odd medal in the Olympics , what have we achieved?

Two Grand slams in the 100+ years of the 5/6 Nations.

Eurovision wins - Wow !

A few rock stars that hang out with Tony Blair and Bill Clinton and Oama for mutual ego building purposes.

Have we any architectural landmark buildings that anyone anywhere can point to and say 'Thats Ireland' in the same way that our nearst neighbours can do about any amount of structures in their capital city alone'?

We have nothing that says 'Ireland' in the same way that an image of the Sydney Opera House says Australia or the bravery of the Guggenheim in Bilbao exert themselves as landmarks.

Architecture is only one example. We have nothing to show for ourselves after 90 years as a nation in many other areas.

No defence force. - Our Army, Navy and Air Corps deserve better. They do a great job but by and large, our successive governments don't dive a fuck about them.

My suggestion - Abolish our charade of meaningless neutrality and join NATO now.

Infrastructure - From day one we have begged, srounged and prostituted our dignity before our European partners with the con of optaining funding for our bad roads, railways and cargo terminals in our ports etc.

What did we do with it?

Our town centres are being boarded up as people flock to the German and British stores on the edge of town.



Ireland as a nation has fuckall to show for itself.

Apart from a few trinkets .

An Irish architect designed the white house

Paramite Pie

Lapin wrote: »

Not bitter at all.

Just sad that people like you are content to sit back and swallow shít.

Thats why Ireland has fuckall to show for itself.

Ireland doesn't need to show anything to anybody or any country. I'm content with Ireland to simply exist as a nation and not ramming our ego down the worlds throat.

How many countries of a similar population size have famous buildings? Luxembourg? Denmark? Finland? Norway? I can't name any 21st century constructions in Oslo or Copenhagen.

I don't see the point in comparing us to huge countries, it sounds like an inferiority complex more than anything. Dublin is not New York or London nor will it ever be. And there's nothing wrong with that. Let's be a bit broader minded and compare us with the smaller countries so that we can better assess our shortcomings.

UCDVet

In fairness - what has *any* country achieved?

People live their lives. Collectively, we manage to make small improvements along the way. Rarely, some genius comes along and makes some big discovery and we all benefit.

I don't think Ireland is under-represented in those groups at all.

SpaceTime

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

That actually angers me a bit tbh. Do those idiots not have an inkling of some of the hell-holes around the world and how their people would give their eye-teeth to have even some of the freedoms we enjoy? Ireland could improve in some ways - I hate the self-loathing but I don't agree with blind praise of the place either, but I feel so ****ing lucky to have been born in this country instead of e.g. Afghanistan.

There's always room for improvement and quite a few things that need tweaking and reforming but there's a huge difference between constructive criticism and following up on that by lobbying and voting and stuff vs just ridiculous comparisons that make no sense and wallowing in some kind of misery-orgy.

DublinWriter

Lapin wrote: »

Have we any architectural landmark buildings that anyone anywhere can point to and say 'Thats Ireland' in the same way that our nearst neighbours can do about any amount of structures in their capital city alone'?

Georgian Dublin, Trinity College and we also have a rich culture of modern architecture with guys like Desmond FitzGerald and Michael Scott.

Sure we don't have single major landmarks like the Sydney Opera House or the Guggenheim because great big thrusting singular architectural statements are not reflective of us as a people.

Generally we do small, interesting and innovative.

Banjoxed

Think of London or Brussels as the real capital and then things feel far less bitter, than if you limit yourself to the navel gazing 26-county crap.

suicide_circus

Ireland - where the hair shirt never goes out of fashion.

SpaceTime

donegal__road wrote: »

How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It


I bet no one knew that Scotland has declared that they invented the modern world as we know it..

The Scots have a dose of the old miserable syndrome too at time though.
The above is written specifically to really annoy the English

ScumLord

jeni wrote: »

I brought my daughter into town and I was proud and quite surprised how much I had to show her, GPO, Grafton St, Trinity college

Ah sure the brits built those for us.

The Irish republic isn't even 100 years old, in that time we're dragged ourselves up from a 3rd world country with next to no public infrastructure to a country that is consistently hitting above it's weight on the world stage.

I'm not saying we're the greatest or anything but for a tiny island with a total population that would fit into a city like Birmingham with space to spare we've done quite well for ourselves.

bear1

This thread seems to be here just to stir ****e from what I can see.
OP what are you expecting out of this country? We are minute population wise, just came out of a recession and are fighting back economically.
Our cities don't have 900 story skyscrapers, do we need them?
We don't need tall buildings or metros or what have you to be recognised in the world.
We have a history that can't be matched, we have the highest cliffs in Europe (you asked something you could point to and know immediately it's Irish - there you go) we have the best surfing conditions, beautiful scenery, Glendalough, Newgrange. I could go on and on.
You seem bitter, spiteful and quite frankly it looks like you are not easy to impress.
How about these pointless threads are closed?

shane9689

past 100 years? our country hasn't even existed for 100 years, what the hell do you expect?

ScumLord

We also have maybe hundreds of castles, while they may not be spectacular castles like you'll find in the rest of Europe and they're all pretty much the same castle design I'd wonder if that's actually beneficial to historians. We've got the same castle design in various stages of decay allowing historians to study all the different aspects and get more valuable information about how the castle were made and used by the people of the time.

It's probably hard to really know what's going on with a one off castle that's still in use.

shane9689

also, armies are for fighting, even if we had an army, who would we fight?
our defence force meets its needs, peacekeeping and anti-terrorism and anti-piracy, what do we need more for?

Last_Minute

If you want a REALLY easy job, join the Irish military.

Tail Docker

We gave the world the opening bars of Riverdance..that alone has stood more hairs up on more necks than the Sydney opera House could ever hope to.

SpaceTime

ScumLord wrote: »

Ah sure the brits built those for us.

The Irish republic isn't even 100 years old, in that time we're dragged ourselves up from a 3rd world country with next to no public infrastructure to a country that is consistently hitting above it's weight on the world stage.

I'm not saying we're the greatest or anything but for a tiny island with a total population that would fit into a city like Birmingham with space to spare we've done quite well for ourselves.

The "Brits" didn't build most of that, other than a few governmental buildings like Dublin Castle.
Most of the grand buildings were paid for by Irish people / businesses / funded here for various purposes from grand houses to educational establishments like the Royal Dublin Society, there was also a Cork equivalent that built stuff like the Crawford etc.

The universities also mostly came from local funding. UCC for example was funded largely by donations from wealthy philanthropists in the early days.

Also, the majority of the railway infrastructure was built by private companies. It was only nationalised when CIE was introduced.

People forget that the "state" in the Victorian era did very little other than fight wars. The concept of socially provided services really only started to come into existence in the 20th century in any serious way.

As for Ireland's infrastructure. It was quite decent in 1920 by international comparisons at the time.
It went way downhill in the period when the state was stabilising and establishing itself though and fell quite far behind by the 1970s. It was never abysmally bad though.

bear1

Last_Minute wrote: »

If you want a REALLY easy job, join the Irish military.

You're post is both pathetic and uneducated.

Last_Minute

bear1 wrote: »

You're post is both pathetic and uneducated.

But true, that's the main thing.

bear1

Last_Minute wrote: »

But true, that's the main thing.

True according to who? Is it a known fact or what?

Ralf and Florian

Lapin wrote: »

I'm trying to get a 21'st century thing going here.

Name one thing Ireland built in the last 100 years that stands out amonst the rest of the world?


One thing ?

The Gluckman Gallery in Cork.In 500 buildings to see before you die book.

Wicklowrider

Last_Minute wrote: »

If you want a REALLY easy job, join the Irish military.

Says someone who never served anyone or anything in their life.....

Aidric

Aesthetically speaking our urban centers are dumps. Aesthetics, however, do not define a county, it's people and culture do.

Having lived in a few European countries I can say that being Irish is looked on as being overwhelmingly positive so we must be doing something right.

As a people our brilliance is extolled in individual moments of brilliance as opposed to any real consistent pattern of excellence. I can never quite understand the prevalence of resentment for individuals who excelled in their fields but that perhaps explains why so many of them have emigrated.

This all feeds in to a disillusionment with politics which ends up with the same faces and their relatives being elected, therefore it's hard not to be apathetic.

In summary we have a lot going for us but always end up being undermined through a cocktail of apathy and self loathing.

diomed

Lapin wrote: »

We have nothing that says 'Ireland' in the same way that an image of the Sydney Opera House says Australia or the bravery of the Guggenheim in Bilbao exert themselves as landmarks.

Sydney Opera House - says Denmark
Guggenheim - says Canada

DublinWriter

Last_Minute wrote: »

If you want a REALLY easy job, join the Irish military.

Tell that to the 6,000 Irishmen who served in the Congo from 1960 until 1964.

Butterface

http://tinyurl.com/l7wgooe

OP should watch this TED talk from earlier in the summer. Maybe a bit of perspective is needed. I certainly wouldn't want to come from a country that is merely defined by its architectural achievements. Why don't you cast a glance over some of Ireland's natural beauty. We didn't create it, but we're damn lucky to live upon it. Check out the Cliffs of Moher or the Giant's Causeway.

We live on a small island with a small population, yet our international reputation surmounts all the negatives you've presented. Ireland does not have to be defined by any man-made landmarks. As a previous poster mentioned, there are not always positive associations with many of the world's most famous landmarks.

And no, I don't think the sun shines out of Ireland's arse. Our infrastructure isn't great and rural Ireland is suffering and parts of it are being left behind, but this is not a uniquely Irish problem.

There's no shame in leaving Ireland, and perhaps you already have. And when you get to your new destination you'll probably meet many people from all parts of the globe who complain about their own country's domestic problems. And maybe you'll listen and find out about their country's abysmal economic problems and terrible human rights violations and reconsider how you feel about Ireland. But you probably won't.

Last_Minute

Wicklowrider wrote: »

Says someone who never served anyone or anything in their life.....

Ok.

Reindeer

Well, it could certainly be worse. At about this time in the US history, they had already killed nearly 700,000 of each other fighting over cotton.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Lapin wrote: »

I'm trying to get a 21'st century thing going here.

Name one thing Ireland built in the last 100 years that stands out amonst the rest of the world?


One thing ?

Whadaya call that pole thing in O'Connell street, the Spike or something like that?

Or how about emmm, Liberty Hall?

Ok I got nothing.

Rothko

Why the hell do so many people seem to love to put our country down at every possible opportunity? I can never understand it.

riclad

It is at the centre of modern economys .
AT least in citys, large towns we have fast internet.
OUR roads are a lot better than they were 20 years ago.
WE have dart and the luas.

WE have a modern democracy .
WE are no longer run by the church .
TRY living in iraq,or north korea , china
the standard of life is low,
free speech is not easy to find.
Government control ,censorship is the norm.
IF you want to listen or read ,theres a good range of irish culture , music ,and books to read.
FOR a small country we produce a lot of famous singers, writers ,poets.

WE have many beautiful buildings, most of them pre 1960.
WE have a range of irish tv,stations, which produce some good programs, considering their budget is tiny, compared with the bbc.
And we have acess to a wide range of uk tv stations too.
WE speak english which is he international language of business .
YOU can look at any country ,and find things to find fault with.

Fratton Fred

LorMal wrote: »

Wellington hated Ireland and the Irish.

Arthur Wellesley may have considered himself Anglo Irish, but was never ashamed of his irishness, nor did he hate the Irish.

Shakespeare's Sister

LorMal wrote: »

Wellington hated Ireland and the Irish.
Arthur Conan Doyle was Scottish, not Irish
Edgar Rice Burroughs was American, not Irish
Henry Ford was American, not Irish
George Boole was English. not Irish
You are right about compressed air being first used in a viaduct in Drogheda(!?!)

Love these "Taking the micks down a notch" posts. By fellow micks.

Lapin

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

Love these "Taking the micks down a notch" posts. By fellow micks.

But they're not micks.

Reindeer

Lapin wrote: »

But they're not micks.

But you are, right? The 100 years isn't yet up. Feel free to go about and make something of yourself and make Ireland proud.

newbie2013

We had the best and most efficient guerilla army in the world in the IRA and I'm proud to say some of my family served in them. Me, I never got the chance lol

Herb Powell

Lapin wrote: »

My point summed up here.

We have Army, Navy and Air Corps defence forces (and I'm damn proud of all three).

But as long as successive governments treat them as revenue collectors rather than men and women who deserve to serve the state at a higher level on the international stage, they will always be no more than a sourse of cheap jokes through no fault of their own.

And they don't deserve that.

So you want Ireland to play war for the sake of it??

Get fuccked. That's absolutely laughable.

Mint Aero wrote: »

We can't win the architecture prize. They're villages in England more aweinspiring than what our entire cities put together offer.

We've a good mix of landscape over a small distance, compact and easily travelled.

We're tax haven whores for multi nationals.

We love IT but IT is bolox and will be relatively short lived.

We're not friendly. At all. We're self centred backward people for the most part.

Biggest achievements last decade, couple of medals for boxing in the olympics and a grand slam....wow we've really conquered the world eh.

Our food is sh*t. What is our food anyway anymore?? Fcuk knows. Irish beef Irish chicken bolox is all I hear. Have never came across a decent place for a bit of decent grub.

There is no peace in the North from what I see. It's unresolved ongoing conflict.

Good Irish film, tv series last decade anyone? Mrs. Brownes boys and that other thing....dublin scummers feud drugs programme, can't remember the name, forgettable sh*te...ah love/hate that was it.

Good Irish book/art/play achieving consistent international acclaim last decade anyone? Nah.

Good Irish pub anyone? That doesn't just stock your typical bud, heino, miller piss.

Anyone from costal counties ever bother visiting anywhere or anything in the midlands ever for anything really? Worth a return trip? Thought not.

Education? The LC, yes lets vaguely remember some facts about a dozen or so subjects that for the most part bear no relevance on anyones life again. Basically don't be thick at Maths and you'll be set for getting into college.

History? Why bother, when you can see half the numpties on AH (hopefully not an accurate depiction of Ireland) praise and bend over arse to Mandela and then be all like oh that Gerry Adams grrrrr rte and miriam don't like him.

Everything that's wrong with ireland. Village idiots and the gaaaaaaa for one. Parish pump politics.

I'm actually bored writing this, it's depressing me. I could be here all night otherwise.

This is literally all bullshhit.

Lapin wrote: »

I know that AngeGal.

I've been down there, seen (and smelt) the conditions. I'm a activily involved in trying to help prevent some of the kids nearby ending up there.

PM Me if you want to help out.

No, you haven't, and secondly, can you really claim that Ireland is worse than that, having witnessed it?? Absolute ****, man.

wiseoldelf34

well if helps we might be allowed abortions soon
and the gays are allowed to marry each other soon

Idbatterim

I absolutely agree on the architecture front op, provincial British cities would be more ambitious. Look at the crap thats gone up in the docklands, a massive housing shortage and look at the current plans for grand canal dock! Lets all blow all our income on rent or live our lives commuting, its so unsustainable on a number of levels. Infrastructure is anothEr one an international airport with over 22 million passengers that can handle up to 35 million, only a few miles out from centre, no rail link. No dart underground I.e a properly integrated transport system. A luas line that didnt link up from the getgo. An upgraded m50 that a few years after its upgrade is already badly congested at peak times...

The King of Moo

"There were so many great things about our time in Ireland! The scenery was simply breathtaking, incredible! And then after enjoying it, to be able to go to one of many pubs offering free music by talented musicians was fantastic, I've never experienced that anywhere else! And we were there in the summer so there were also lots of festivals on. It was also so nice that so many people were friendly, welcoming, and spoke to us. That we were able to enjoy all of the above in a safe, clean, modern, peaceful country was brilliant!
However, there were no examples of brave architecture, which completely cancelled out all of the good points.
We'll never come back."

... no visitors to Ireland ever.

ardle1

Lapin wrote: »

I'm trying to get a 21'st century thing going here.

Name one thing Ireland built in the last 100 years that stands out amonst the rest of the world?


One thing ?

Eh.... Oh yeah, the new Tesco extra in Dundalk

WoollyRedHat

The Diabolical Monocle wrote: »

theres only fvcking 4.5 million of us in the republic.

what do you want ? - skyscrapers, aircraft carriers and bullet-trains.

MONORAIL !

Tarzana

pidgeoneyes wrote: »

Have you ever heard Paul Brady sing The Lakes of Ponchartrain!

No, I've heard yer man from the Blandonas, sorry, Coronas sing it though.

Tarzana

Mint Aero wrote: »

Have never came across a decent place for a bit of decent grub.

Try harder. Actually, you don't have to try very hard to find great places to eat in Ireland. I feel sorry for you.