I would say its broadly accurate. I wouldn’t say it’s born of dishonesty that we don’t show our true feelings though, it’s not a deliberate thing. Irish people tend to form friendships that would be very strong but may not be very deep, so you may not know everything about a person even after years of knowing them
Why should anyone assume affability = affinity?
It’s the goddamn truth.
Jesus, they make it sound like it’s a bad thing!
I’d say it’s fairly keenly observed, to be honest, yeah.
So my take on this is yes and no. That’s all I’ll say because to be honest it can be true for some but I know people who are more down for a deep chat and won’t have a joking mood. So it’s very dependent on who you hang around with so like I said yes and no.
Obviously an American. Overshare is a way of life for them. Why the hell do they feel this need to know the life story of every casual acquaintance, up to and including where their fucking great-great grandparents came from? And would likewise happily spend hours filling you in on theirs?
I like it
I struggled with “How are you?” for the longest time when I moved over to Ireland. I used to actually answer the question, assuming it’s a real question and not just a rhetoric introduction.
Now I know the response to the question is “grand, what about yourself?”.
I think it’s accurate. We do form real friendships but with a very small select group of people. It’d be exhausting befriending everyone we encounter
It’s true, very oversimplified but true nonetheless
Poster isn’t wrong in some respects, but also sounds insufferable (often being “honest and upfront” is a way to excuse absolute dickhead behavior).
I think fake and dishonest makes it seem more sinister or intentional? I could see it happening though when you find out someone you thought liked you was bitching about you. I would say we’re extremely non confrontational so if you have an issue with someone it’s more likely you bitch behind their back than just move on or talk with them.
I’ve seen this a lot with friends, I have some friends who bitch about each other but when they meet it’s all hugs and they get on great.
It’s very hard to make proper friends with an Irish person too, people have their friends from school or college and that’s it. I even see this with family, I meet with cousins at weddings or family gatherings and we get on super. Like really really well, then we dont’ see each other for months/years and repeat the process haha. If any of them asked to meet one on one randomly, I would think someone was dying.
I could see how if you’re a non national, it’s confusing. You get on really well with someone but if you were to try to be friendly outside of work, you come across as a weirdo. I guess there is some comfort in knowing what to expect though? Like Irish people can be super polite and chatty and nice, just don’t go poking too much past that or you’ll be disappointed.
Bit harsh, but overall pretty accurate imo
Fun fact. For work I did a cross cultural communications presentation. My research led to the conclusion that the highest cultural affinity in communication for the Irish was the Danes and the Australians. There’s many ways to read this lads but we’re basically great Danes crossed with Australian shepherds.
A lot of larger countries can afford to be more flippant because they are so anonymous.
We’re a small country and people are connected in many ways, we’ve developed to be very private, non-confrontational and sensitive in what we share to protect our reputations. It’s a survival mechanism. We cover things up and keep things behind closed doors.
Yes.
And the third degree treatment you get as soon as you meet someone for the first time. They are getting info for the data base they have in their brain.
I’ve always found very irritating to be asked straightaway what do you do for a living.
“Tend to disappear when you try to get close to them”
Yeah, more like we’ve a fairly good filter for ball aches. And there’s no ball ache like one that writes replies like this on Quora.
“Personally I often have a hard time telling what they really think and whether they like me or not”
If you’re left asking that all the time…
I would say that is a pretty accurate assessment, but the OP misunderstands the reason for it. Us Irish are incredibly tribal. Once you’re trying to get to know us you’re trying to join our tribe and we’re fierce distrustful of that.
Anyone visiting the country for a week isn’t going to get into deep conversations with anyone.
I don’t really agree with this. I don’t think you can lump people in categories with similar characteristics. Ireland has plenty of nice people, and a handful of horrible people, like everywhere else
Honestly the older one gets the harder it becomes to maintain friendships, nevermind the difficulty in making them initially. Working full time and maybe with kids, all the chores from doing the shopping to cutting the grass to fixing the broken XYZ, to popping into your parents for an hour. Where is the time left over to maintain meaningful friendships beyond a small handful?
I dislike these kinds of generalisations. I think we are a friendly bunch for the most part and I don’t for a second think it is disingenuous or dishonest (and if it was you could tell a mile off). As for deeper conversations, I have had Irish people I barely know open up to me at bus stops or clients at work tell me their problems and I didn’t know them from Adam. I’ve witnessed and been part of deep thoughtful and meaningful conversations between friends and/or with strangers over the years. However, if those kind of conversations don’t happen naturally and someone tries to force it then I will be put off and disengage! Nothing wrong with having light conversations either. Life is serious enough so a bit of fun banter is a tonic at times. Now this is just my own take and Im not going to down play people’s negative experiences as its different for everyone. But I hate sweeping statements. Out of curiosity I went onto that post on Quora and the other comments aren’t any better lol.
It’s a pretty accurate description of how it feels from the other side. I think a lot of Irish people would disagree that they do that, while doing it
IMO this happens both ways.
I worked in a ‘multicultural’ office environment for a couple of years with a diverse group of colleagues from many different countries.
I consider myself a very friendly and outgoing person but could never get close to a non Irish person, they all kept to their own groups and didn’t bother with the natives, especially if the natives were on the same level career wise.
Me and another few Irish people had the same experience.
I disagree with the fake and dishonest part but the rest is fairly spot on. However I think describing our affability as fake is misunderstanding our culture fairly fundamentally. I’ve experienced ‘fake’ friendliness in other places, notably America, and it’s quite obvious that people are being disingenuous. You don’t get that sort of behaviour here, mostly people will be friendly until they don’t want to be for whatever reason (they don’t gel with you/they had other plans/it was just a casual interaction that was never meant to go further/they like you but aren’t comfortable with some level of the interaction etc etc) which is what I think the poster experienced here when possibly people tried to distance themselves when they tried to form a deeper connection, but didn’t necessarily explain why to them. And this lack of explanation is 100% the Irish way.
To label the original friendliness as fake just because the friendship didn’t progress as you wanted is a bit ungenerous and I think this fundamental misunderstanding of our culture probably led to the experiences the poster had.
As someone who lived for more than 10 years in Ireland, I’d say its 90% and I can totally relate.
Yes it is true to an extent but this is more of a misunderstanding than anything else. Obviously this is all generalities that many many Irish people don’t conform to.
Nonetheless we tend to be very friendly to strangers and visitors, more so than really any english speaking country I’ve been to. That said, we don’t think of people we treat this way as new friends, it’s just politeness and friendliness to us. Forming actual friendships in Ireland seems to take a lot longer than in other (again english speaking) countries.
Honestly the criticism this commenter has leveled against us kind of feels like a guy who gets piss off because they misinterpreted a girl smiling at them or being generally friendly as genuine attraction or leading them on.
Our culture is to be friendly up front to everyone, but nobody can have deep friendships with everyone they meet or interact with so we tend to have a close knit group of friends that it takes a long time to bridge into or like most people who end up in the friendly acquaintance category. Chances are this basically means one of three things:
a) the irish person doesn’t really want to be close friends with you and the initial friendliness is just politeness,
b) they don’t have the capacity/time for another meaningful friendship, or
c) they don’t realise that you want to be good friends.
I honestly get how this can be difficult for an outsider, particularly on which is trying to start a life here and form friendships but the flip side is that many people stay in ireland for a short period or move around, it’s harder to really invest the time and effort needed for a real friendship with people who are here temporarily, as such.
That said I don’t think it is wayyyy harder to make friends in Ireland than the UK or Australia for example, i think it is just offputting that the upfront friendliness doesn’t translate to a meaningful friendship directly.
so in short, I think the commenter is right to an extent, but some of the comments that attribute intentionality or blame to people simply following the culture of upfront friendliness with a more guarded closer circle is misguided. i.e:
>”The Irish friendliness is however partially a disguise and I do find many of them to be pretty fake and dishonest”
>”I come from a culture where being more upfront and honest in valued more than pretended superficial friendliness”.
It’s very very rare that we are pretending to be friendly unless they simply don’t like you for some reason (very very rare in first encounters), it just doesn’t mean I want to be your close friend. I still care for your general wellbeing and want you to have a good time, I just don’t have the capacity to take on the role of close friend to everyone I meet (talking about life troubles etc).
Sounds like he’s shite craic and people didn’t want to talk to him
29 comments
I would say its broadly accurate. I wouldn’t say it’s born of dishonesty that we don’t show our true feelings though, it’s not a deliberate thing. Irish people tend to form friendships that would be very strong but may not be very deep, so you may not know everything about a person even after years of knowing them
Why should anyone assume affability = affinity?
It’s the goddamn truth.
Jesus, they make it sound like it’s a bad thing!
I’d say it’s fairly keenly observed, to be honest, yeah.
So my take on this is yes and no. That’s all I’ll say because to be honest it can be true for some but I know people who are more down for a deep chat and won’t have a joking mood. So it’s very dependent on who you hang around with so like I said yes and no.
Obviously an American. Overshare is a way of life for them. Why the hell do they feel this need to know the life story of every casual acquaintance, up to and including where their fucking great-great grandparents came from? And would likewise happily spend hours filling you in on theirs?
I like it
I struggled with “How are you?” for the longest time when I moved over to Ireland. I used to actually answer the question, assuming it’s a real question and not just a rhetoric introduction.
Now I know the response to the question is “grand, what about yourself?”.
I think it’s accurate. We do form real friendships but with a very small select group of people. It’d be exhausting befriending everyone we encounter
It’s true, very oversimplified but true nonetheless
Poster isn’t wrong in some respects, but also sounds insufferable (often being “honest and upfront” is a way to excuse absolute dickhead behavior).
I think fake and dishonest makes it seem more sinister or intentional? I could see it happening though when you find out someone you thought liked you was bitching about you. I would say we’re extremely non confrontational so if you have an issue with someone it’s more likely you bitch behind their back than just move on or talk with them.
I’ve seen this a lot with friends, I have some friends who bitch about each other but when they meet it’s all hugs and they get on great.
It’s very hard to make proper friends with an Irish person too, people have their friends from school or college and that’s it. I even see this with family, I meet with cousins at weddings or family gatherings and we get on super. Like really really well, then we dont’ see each other for months/years and repeat the process haha. If any of them asked to meet one on one randomly, I would think someone was dying.
I could see how if you’re a non national, it’s confusing. You get on really well with someone but if you were to try to be friendly outside of work, you come across as a weirdo. I guess there is some comfort in knowing what to expect though? Like Irish people can be super polite and chatty and nice, just don’t go poking too much past that or you’ll be disappointed.
Bit harsh, but overall pretty accurate imo
Fun fact. For work I did a cross cultural communications presentation. My research led to the conclusion that the highest cultural affinity in communication for the Irish was the Danes and the Australians. There’s many ways to read this lads but we’re basically great Danes crossed with Australian shepherds.
A lot of larger countries can afford to be more flippant because they are so anonymous.
We’re a small country and people are connected in many ways, we’ve developed to be very private, non-confrontational and sensitive in what we share to protect our reputations. It’s a survival mechanism. We cover things up and keep things behind closed doors.
Yes.
And the third degree treatment you get as soon as you meet someone for the first time. They are getting info for the data base they have in their brain.
I’ve always found very irritating to be asked straightaway what do you do for a living.
“Tend to disappear when you try to get close to them”
Yeah, more like we’ve a fairly good filter for ball aches. And there’s no ball ache like one that writes replies like this on Quora.
“Personally I often have a hard time telling what they really think and whether they like me or not”
If you’re left asking that all the time…
I would say that is a pretty accurate assessment, but the OP misunderstands the reason for it. Us Irish are incredibly tribal. Once you’re trying to get to know us you’re trying to join our tribe and we’re fierce distrustful of that.
Anyone visiting the country for a week isn’t going to get into deep conversations with anyone.
I don’t really agree with this. I don’t think you can lump people in categories with similar characteristics. Ireland has plenty of nice people, and a handful of horrible people, like everywhere else
Honestly the older one gets the harder it becomes to maintain friendships, nevermind the difficulty in making them initially. Working full time and maybe with kids, all the chores from doing the shopping to cutting the grass to fixing the broken XYZ, to popping into your parents for an hour. Where is the time left over to maintain meaningful friendships beyond a small handful?
I dislike these kinds of generalisations. I think we are a friendly bunch for the most part and I don’t for a second think it is disingenuous or dishonest (and if it was you could tell a mile off). As for deeper conversations, I have had Irish people I barely know open up to me at bus stops or clients at work tell me their problems and I didn’t know them from Adam. I’ve witnessed and been part of deep thoughtful and meaningful conversations between friends and/or with strangers over the years. However, if those kind of conversations don’t happen naturally and someone tries to force it then I will be put off and disengage! Nothing wrong with having light conversations either. Life is serious enough so a bit of fun banter is a tonic at times. Now this is just my own take and Im not going to down play people’s negative experiences as its different for everyone. But I hate sweeping statements. Out of curiosity I went onto that post on Quora and the other comments aren’t any better lol.
It’s a pretty accurate description of how it feels from the other side. I think a lot of Irish people would disagree that they do that, while doing it
IMO this happens both ways.
I worked in a ‘multicultural’ office environment for a couple of years with a diverse group of colleagues from many different countries.
I consider myself a very friendly and outgoing person but could never get close to a non Irish person, they all kept to their own groups and didn’t bother with the natives, especially if the natives were on the same level career wise.
Me and another few Irish people had the same experience.
I disagree with the fake and dishonest part but the rest is fairly spot on. However I think describing our affability as fake is misunderstanding our culture fairly fundamentally. I’ve experienced ‘fake’ friendliness in other places, notably America, and it’s quite obvious that people are being disingenuous. You don’t get that sort of behaviour here, mostly people will be friendly until they don’t want to be for whatever reason (they don’t gel with you/they had other plans/it was just a casual interaction that was never meant to go further/they like you but aren’t comfortable with some level of the interaction etc etc) which is what I think the poster experienced here when possibly people tried to distance themselves when they tried to form a deeper connection, but didn’t necessarily explain why to them. And this lack of explanation is 100% the Irish way.
To label the original friendliness as fake just because the friendship didn’t progress as you wanted is a bit ungenerous and I think this fundamental misunderstanding of our culture probably led to the experiences the poster had.
As someone who lived for more than 10 years in Ireland, I’d say its 90% and I can totally relate.
Yes it is true to an extent but this is more of a misunderstanding than anything else. Obviously this is all generalities that many many Irish people don’t conform to.
Nonetheless we tend to be very friendly to strangers and visitors, more so than really any english speaking country I’ve been to. That said, we don’t think of people we treat this way as new friends, it’s just politeness and friendliness to us. Forming actual friendships in Ireland seems to take a lot longer than in other (again english speaking) countries.
Honestly the criticism this commenter has leveled against us kind of feels like a guy who gets piss off because they misinterpreted a girl smiling at them or being generally friendly as genuine attraction or leading them on.
Our culture is to be friendly up front to everyone, but nobody can have deep friendships with everyone they meet or interact with so we tend to have a close knit group of friends that it takes a long time to bridge into or like most people who end up in the friendly acquaintance category. Chances are this basically means one of three things:
a) the irish person doesn’t really want to be close friends with you and the initial friendliness is just politeness,
b) they don’t have the capacity/time for another meaningful friendship, or
c) they don’t realise that you want to be good friends.
I honestly get how this can be difficult for an outsider, particularly on which is trying to start a life here and form friendships but the flip side is that many people stay in ireland for a short period or move around, it’s harder to really invest the time and effort needed for a real friendship with people who are here temporarily, as such.
That said I don’t think it is wayyyy harder to make friends in Ireland than the UK or Australia for example, i think it is just offputting that the upfront friendliness doesn’t translate to a meaningful friendship directly.
so in short, I think the commenter is right to an extent, but some of the comments that attribute intentionality or blame to people simply following the culture of upfront friendliness with a more guarded closer circle is misguided. i.e:
>”The Irish friendliness is however partially a disguise and I do find many of them to be pretty fake and dishonest”
>”I come from a culture where being more upfront and honest in valued more than pretended superficial friendliness”.
It’s very very rare that we are pretending to be friendly unless they simply don’t like you for some reason (very very rare in first encounters), it just doesn’t mean I want to be your close friend. I still care for your general wellbeing and want you to have a good time, I just don’t have the capacity to take on the role of close friend to everyone I meet (talking about life troubles etc).
Sounds like he’s shite craic and people didn’t want to talk to him