Irish Culture

1. Irish Culture How the Irish live now

2. Irish Life • In the last 30 years, life in Ireland has changed a lot, and this has meant that people have had to change the way that they think and act. • One way that life has changed is that farming has become less common. • Although Ireland still produces a lot of farming products, a lot of the farms are very big and are owned by large companies. • In the past, farms were small, and each family took care of their own small piece of land.

3. Irish Life • This means that older people would remember a time when many people grew up on farms, but young people think it is normal to grow up in the city. • Younger people would these days be encouraged to go to University and find high paid jobs, rather than to live on a farm with a large family, all working together.

4. The Catholic Church • Because many people these days have a better education, and know more about other parts of the world and different cultures, the Catholic church has become less important to Irish life. • In the past, the people of Ireland were more devoted to the church, and many followed the orders from the pope and from his priests without question. • Now that people are thinking more for themselves on matters, the power of the priests has become less and less.

5. The Catholic Church • The Catholic church is very strict on matters of sex, and following these rules has had important effects on Irish society. • Birth control, like the use of condoms, is forbidden by the catholic church. • This means that following catholic rules can result in a family with many more children than is usual these days.

6. The Catholic Church • Many people today believe in the catholic religion, but in Ireland the church had a lot of power over the government, and had a say in laws that were made. • Contraception and abortion were outlawed, and Irish families were often very large. • Even today, although the church has less power, people still follow some of the rules, and abortion is still illegal in Ireland for this reason.

7. The Catholic Church • As the Irish people became more knowledgeable, the power of the church was seen as sometimes negative. • Many countries in Europe were catholic without giving the church as much power as they had in Ireland. • The laws which were created based on catholic beliefs were not always allowed by the EU, which Ireland had joined, and so many of these laws had to be changed.

8. The Catholic Church • People in Ireland began to see the problems in Northern Ireland as being caused by religion, and this made them more aware that their own laws were also biased. • In 1995, there was a referendum on whether divorce should be allowed in Ireland. • The catholic church was against this, but the people voted to allow it anyway. • People trusted priests less than they had in the past.

9. The Catholic Church • As in other countries, modern times had resulted in people feeling free to tell the world about bad things that the priests had done. • Stories of Catholic priests abusing young children got a lot of publicity. • The catholic church had in the past been seen by Irish people as representing purity, and had for many years been telling them to ignore their sexual feelings. • Now that priests were found to be doing these bad things, it seemed like the church should not be telling about what was good and what was bad.

10. Catholics and Protestants • Although people these days are less likely to follow the orders of the catholic priests without question, most Irish people still think of themselves as catholic. • Catholics believe that the pope is chosen by God to be in charge of christians on Earth, but protestants believe that people don’t need the pope to tell them what to do, they can find out what they want to know from the Bible.

11. Catholics and Protestants • Although these days there are still only a few protestants in Ireland compared with the number of catholics, the younger more educated people would not care as much about the differences as the older people. • Some older and less educated people would still see the protestants as being close to the British, and think that they would be rich. • They might also think of the Catholic people as being more Irish.

12. The Irish Family • In the past Irish people often had very large families. • One of reasons was that the catholic church banned many types of birth control, and also encouraged Irish people to have large families. • Also, because many Irish families lived on farms, a large family meant there would be a lot of workers to help on the farm.

13. The Irish family • Irish people are very close to their extended family, like cousins and uncles and aunts and grandparents. • In traditional Irish culture before the British took control, the tribe was the most important part of society, so this aspect of Celtic life is still a part of Irish life. • These days women in Irish families have a much different role than they had.

14. The Irish Family • With the church having less control over daily life in Ireland, and the EU bringing in new laws, modern ideas about women’s rights came to Ireland. • The church had a lot of rules about marriage, and was against unmarried women having babies. • These days the church doesn’t have as much influence, and single mothers are quite common.

15. The Irish Family • Ireland has laws like all EU countries which look after the rights of women in society, and particularly in the workplace. • Married women in Ireland used to not be allowed to have government jobs. • Even after this was changed, it was still difficult for women, because an employers could fire them when they got pregnant. • These days there are laws which make sure that when a woman has a baby, she keeps her job, and gets financial support .

16. Irish Community • In the past, most Irish people lived on farms, and the people living in the cities were often the richer protestants. • Today this has all changed, but many city people still have relatives in the country-side, who they are still close to. • Like many places controlled by the British in the past, in Ireland an important social meeting place is the public house, also called a “pub”.

17. Irish Community • A pub is usually a building which has a bar serving alcoholic drinks, and also serves simple meals, and may have rooms for rent. • In cities as well as in small villages, the local pub is a place for friends to meet and socialise, to eat and listen to music. • It is also a place where a lot of drinking goes on, and Irish people have something of a reputation for drinking a lot of alcohol.

18. Irish Work Culture • Trade unions are an important part of Irish work culture. • Trade unions are groups of workers in a type of work who join together to try to improve conditions in their workplace. • So, for example, all of the people who work on buildings may have a union. • This union will make sure that the workplace is safe, and try to get better pay and advantages for the workers.

19. Irish Work Culture • Without trade unions, employers have a lot of power in a western economy. • This is because a single worker can easily be replaced if he complains or wants more money. • If the workers form a trade union, however, they have more power, because they can hold a strike if the employer doesn’t do what they want.

20. Irish Work Culture • A strike is where the workers all stop work, and don’t go back to work until they get what they want. • Because it is hard to replace all of the workers at the same time, an employer might find it easier to just give the union what it wants. • So trade unions might ask for higher pay, or more safety, or longer holidays, and they can threaten to go on strike if they don’t get these things.

21. Irish Education • Education in Ireland is still run mostly by religious groups. • Although in other parts of Irish culture the church has less direct power, religion is still part of daily school life for most students. • When education first became compulsory, the schools were all run by the church, and it is still the catholic church which runs most of the schools today.

22. Irish Education • These days, children of any religion are allowed to attend whichever schools their parents want, but if a parent wants a child raised in a certain religion, they can choose a school run by that religion. • Even universities are often linked with a certain religion in Ireland. • Primary schools are called First-level schools, Secondary schools are called Second-level schools, and universities are called Third-level schools.

23. Irish Education • At the end of Second-level, students sit examinations for their Leaving Certificate, and their marks for this certificate are used for university entry. • University education is very popular in Ireland, and over 40% of people between 25 and 34 years old have a degree. • One of the reasons for this is that, like most European countries, all education is free for EU citizens, including university.

24. Language, Literature and Art • The Irish language is an important part of the culture of Ireland, and the Irish government has put a lot of effort over the years into making sure that it does not disappear. • Only about 3% of the population of Ireland speak the native Irish language in their everyday lives, but it is still the national language, and the first official language of Ireland.

25. The Irish Language • The other official language of Ireland is English, which most Irish people use in their daily lives. • The Irish language comes from the Celtic language that the Celts from Europe brought to Ireland. • It is related to the Gaelic language spoken by Scotland by some people.

26. The Irish Language • One way that the government encourages people to learn Irish is by only giving money to schools who teach it, so most schools in Ireland teach Irish as well as English. • Some universities in Ireland also require students to have studied Irish at Second-level if they want to be accepted. • Even with these encouragements, most people still speak mostly English.

27. The Irish Language • English was brought to Ireland when it was under control of the British. • The English spoken by people in Ireland is quite different from other forms of English, mainly because of the very strong accent, and the slang. • This dialect of English has been affected over many years by the Irish language, so that certain things in Irish have been passed to the type of English that they speak.

28. The Irish Language • Because Ireland is separate from Britain, there are also some old-fashioned ways of speaking used there that have disappeared in Britain. • There are also different accents in different parts of Ireland, which Irish people can tell apart, but which outsiders would find difficult to identify.

29. Oral Culture • Even though the British were in control of Ireland for hundreds of years, the Irish language was still spoken by the poor Irish farmers for much of this time. • The traditions of the Irish people were kept alive by these poorer people, while in the cities the rulers from Britain spoke mostly English.

30. Oral Culture • These poor farmers would often have been unable to read or write, and traditional stories and poetry would be passed down by people memorising and telling each other. • Even after the Irish language started to become less popular, and education was more common, the Irish people kept their style of being very talkative and good at conversation. • This habit helped the Irish to make many famous poets and writers.

31. Irish Literature • Even though Ireland has a very small population compared with nearby countries like the UK, there have been a lot of great Irish writers. • Although many Irish writers still write in the Irish language, Ireland is most famous for its writers in the English language. • Ireland has had four winners of the Nobel prize for literature: George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney.

32. Irish Literature • The most famous Irish writer of all, James Joyce, never won the Nobel prize, even though he wrote what many people think is the best english novel of all time. • Ulysses is a novel written by Joyce, set in Dublin, which is has a storyline based on Homer’s Odyssey. • Samuel Beckett refused to attend his own Nobel Prize award ceremony, because he thought that James Joyce should have won the prize.