Rose-tinted views of the past in Ireland

realitykeeper

sk8erboii wrote: »

LOL so youre banking on the future being horrible to make yourself feel better?

No wonder youre so bitter. Im enjoying the present

It is more a case of hope for the best but expect the worst.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

A lot of Irish people parrot what people in other countries say about the past, forgetting that until recently we were a relatively poor country.

Grayson

Odhinn wrote: »

Did you actually mean "strap on wielding" nuns? Asking for a friend.

I think I've seen that "documentary"

EdgeCase

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

A lot of Irish people parrot what people in other countries say about the past, forgetting that until recently we were a relatively poor country.

So do British people. Many of them seem to be imagining 1950s Britain through the lens of the Fonz on Happy Days, which was actually produced in the 70s and 80s and was an idealised view of 50s Americana itself.

hill16bhoy

EdgeCase wrote: »

So do British people. Many of them seem to be imagining 1950s Britain through the lens of the Fonz on Happy Days, which was actually produced in the 70s and 80s and was an idealised view of 50s Americana itself.

Just imagine an Irish version of Happy Days, set in the 1950s.

Foncie (Alphonsus) is the most popular boy in the class. But he's quickly written out of the series as he emigrates to work on the motorways in England once he reaches his 17th birthday.

Joanie loves Charlie, but one night as they're courting down a quiet country lane, they get a belt of the crozier from the local parish priest, Fr. Cunningham, who is out looking for young couples committing mortal sins. They are publicly shamed at mass the following week.

Richie is another popular character but he dies from TB.

Sean, a peripheral character, is married to a Protestant girl from the town named Sheila. Fr. Cunningham insists their kids be raised as Catholics. When they refuse, the town completely ostracises them and they're forced to move to Belfast.

Joanie ends up pregnant and her parents (who have 16 other kids) force her to go to a mother and baby home where she has her child taken off her, never to be seen again.

Fr. Cunningham turns out to be a child abuser, but we don't find that out until the 40 year reunion special in 1995.

"These happy days are yours and mine..."

Larbre34

I was visiting with family below in Galway in 1992 and we went to mass one Sunday in the Gaeltacht. I had decent Irish through the family connection but it still took me a moment to compute the Priest offering prayers from the altar for the souls of the brave volunteers killed in action a few days before. The 'volunteers' in question were 4 Provos, no less, cornered in a graveyard and killed by the SAS as they attempted to an escape after their heavy machine gun attack on a police station nearby.

Lots to shatter the auld rose tints there.

orourkeda1977

People pretend that inter provincial rugby was well attended before the european cup started

JupiterKid

Wow...the aggression on here. Quelle surprise...

I’m sure there were many things about past times in Ireland that were good but IMO we are a much better, more prosperous, more tolerant, more open society today.

The housing situation is a disaster - we are regressing back to the bad old early 20th century on that score.

EdgeCase

hill16bhoy wrote: »

Just imagine an Irish version of Happy Days, set in the 1950s.

Foncie (Alphonsus) is the most popular boy in the class. But he's quickly written out of the series as he emigrates to work on the motorways in England once he reaches his 17th birthday.

Joanie loves Charlie, but one night as they're courting down a quiet country lane, they get a belt of the crozier from the local parish priest, Fr. Cunningham, who is out looking for young couples committing mortal sins. They are publicly shamed at mass the following week.

Richie is another popular character but he dies from TB.

Sean, a peripheral character, is married to a Protestant girl from the town named Sheila. Fr. Cunningham insists their kids be raised as Catholics. When they refuse, the town completely ostracises them and they're forced to move to Belfast.

Joanie ends up pregnant and her parents (who have 16 other kids) force her to go to a mother and baby home where she has her child taken off her, never to be seen again.

Fr. Cunningham turns out to be a child abuser, but we don't find that out until the 40 year reunion special in 1995.

"These happy days are yours and mine..."

You could also take the view of 1950s American from someone on the wrong side of the apartheid regime that used to operate there.

Violet wanders into the Happy Days diner and they all sneer at her and refuse to serve her because she's not white.

Or John and Steve get beaten up for being gay and then taken to court and prosecuted for being beaten up for being gay.

Meanwhile Jimmy's dad is run out of town because someone spread a rumor that he's a communist.

Nostalgia is lovely but it's a fantasy world that's been sanitised.

There were always happy days for some people, just not everyone.