Re: Re: A Nation at War with its Capital City?

Most middle class Dubliners until the Celtic Tiger were almost exclusively from rural families no more than one or two generations back

That is nonsense. Dublin 4 is a self serving oligarchy – and the snootiest group in the country – with roots going back generations to the Old Norman town. People born in Dublin are Dubliners, anyway, and blaming their antecedents in the countryside is contemptuous nonsense, and typical of the parochial nature of small minded Dubliners ( not other “cosmopolitan city” harks back to the rural antecedents of it’s denizens – which is true, going back the generations, of most). This Dublin “nativism” is pathetic drivel.

Let me re-iterate. The problems with Dublin – which are systemic – are caused by Dubliners: Dublin incompetence, Dublin gombeenism, Dublin corruption. Redmond, Burke, Haughey and more. Dublin Corporation is responsible for Dublin’s failure as a city, not the national government ( despite the mass recent subsidies), and has supplied the National Parliament with most of the corrupt politicos of the last few years.

I associate the accent of Dublin – particularly the northside – with incompetence, insouciance, and contempt. It is the accent of the bad tradesman, the surly busdriver, the unconcerned public official, the street lout, the gombeen taxi-driver: and so on. Country accents in the city are – for obvious reasons – more educated ( as the non-educated stay in their towns or villages or migrate to the nearest large town or city) but nevertheless and despite the advantage or myriad Third Level institutions Dubliners are class for class less educated, less civic minded and more contemptuous of their surrounding environment.

Dublin is a mess, not because of Culchies but Dubliners.