When thinking about the past there is a tendency to remember the big events, the political crises, the economic moments and the newsworthy stories. This approach only tells us so much about the country and tends to offer blurry snapshots of the big-shots. What about the ordinary citizen? This is where survey data is so revealing. The attitudes garnered in survey data are the creed of the country and this value system represents the suite of beliefs that we professed openly.
In 1981, just after the papal visit and just ahead of the 1983 abortion referendum, the European Values Study conducted a wide-ranging survey of Ireland, interviewing thousands of people. The results expose an extraordinarily conservative country, with deep-rooted animosity to people outside the mainstream, a level of moral and sexual conformity that is quite startling, but also a country whose political stability was not taken for granted.
To use that immortal line from LP Hartley’s 1953 novel The Go-Between:“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.”
When seen from the vantage point of today, the values Ireland believed in when Pope John Paul II visited make it not just a foreign country, but an alien planet.
Sexual freedom
For example, when asked whether people should be allowed to enjoy sexual freedom, 70 per cent of people said no; with only 19 per cent saying yes. This is a shocking level of public support for private sexual repression. When asked whether sexuality should be left to individual choice, a huge 61 per cent of Irish people disagreed. This implies that people believed that their own sexuality should be determined by someone else, by society’s general conservative norms and not by themselves.
Nearly six out of 10 people believed that being gay was unacceptable. Just to give you a sense of the nation’s value system, more people (58 per cent) believed that being gay was unacceptable than believed that tax evasion was unacceptable (44 per cent). Practically half the adult population (45 per cent) maintained that divorce was never justified, in under any circumstance.
Four out of 10 contended that four children was the ideal family size. 17 per cent – that’s more than one in six – believed women should ideally have six children or more. Capturing the moral censoriousness of the time, the survey shows that six out of 10 disapproved of single mothers who did not appear to want a stable relationship with a man.
Table manners
Interestingly, when asked about what values we should emphasise in children, over 80 per cent believed that we should place more value on authority and family. When asked what qualities we should instil in our children, only 8 per cent of parents identified encouraging imagination, while 65 per cent maintained that good table manners were crucial.
Religious observation was almost total. An extraordinary 82 per cent of Irish people claimed to go to church at least once a week, and only one in 20 said they never went.
Just over half of people, when asked, contended that the church provided the answers to family problems. Nine out of 10 people believed in heaven and one in three said scientific advances would harm humanity and shouldn’t be embraced.
The survey does throw up strange anomalies, such as that 97 of people believed in God, which is astounding, but one in three also believed in reincarnation, which is kind of reassuring.
In contrast to how much we value individual rights today, in 1981 less than one in four people thought that giving people more say in their lives was important. Reflecting the groupthink of the day, less than one in 10 thought free speech was a vital issue. This was in a country that had just banned Monty Python’s Life of Brian because, although free speech was not important, religious satire threatened the soul of the nation.
Over half of Irish people identified not with Ireland first and foremost, but with the town or locality from which they came. Less than 3 per cent said they were European and only 20 per cent suggested Irish was their preferred identity above their county or village.
Yet it was also a time of rampant nationalism and atrocities in the North. Despite violence being visited upon innocents on almost a weekly basis, one in three people said that they supported the notion of terrorism, which – again seen from today’s vantage point – is disturbingly high.
Significant threat
It was a time of significant threat to the State, mainly stemming from the IRA. We were just about to witness the hunger strikes, and there was a real fear that the State was not in control. Capturing the anxiety of the people at the time, the opening question of that national survey of Ireland in 1981 was: “What should be the nation’s top priority over the next 10 years?”
By far and away the most significant concern, with 41 per cent of people saying it was the top priority, was “maintaining order in the nation”.
Think about this answer and the words “maintaining order in the nation”. Back then the very existence of the place was the primary concern for four out of 10 people. Underlining this was not just the threat from the North spilling over, but deep economic chaos and rampant inflation. The second most pressing concern was “fighting rising prices”.
When looking back, it is helpful to dig deep beyond the headlines. In terms of how far this nation has travelled, how did a nation where close to 60 per cent believed that being gay was unacceptable in 1981 become a nation led by a gay Taoiseach in one generation?
The country that the pope will speak to on Saturday is indeed a changed place.
The corruption of language in the academic humanities is now having a dire effect on political and economic discourse. The hard sciences are fortunate in having absolutes against which to measure and compare everything they do – hogwash is a lot harder to publish and is way harder to get away with. The humanities are not so fortunate: many disciplines have abandoned moral absolutes and intellectual rigour – and in many cases basic honesty. Worst of all is the appetite to always have something novel for the media and budget committees. It was George Orwell in his 1946 essay –… Read more »
The present is a substance abuse filled, tax dodger run country. We went from love without sex, to sex without love. The rich got much richer. The middle class got a lot busier – making the rich, richer. And all along the way those that got richer ensured all behaviour that benefitted them was rewarded. And then there is tax. The greatest, and most revered are all at it now. With DMcW working until recently for a media empire that is owned by three tax non domicile billionaires. A media empire that got bailed out by the taxpayer. Oh, what… Read more »
Firstly – excellent posts so far. Now for another slant. Sexual repression bad however sexual lassez faire is just as bad – ref father not supporting three children with three different mothers. Sexual responsibility good. Tax dodging bad if done to excess because it will lead to moves to curtailment with a cashless society being the number 1 solution resulting in end of freedom and total control by the evil asshole oligarchs both little and large. Tax dodging good if response is to reduce taxes. Tax dodging implies that the reward/risk ratio is too high ie taxes are too high… Read more »
By far and away the most significant concern…, was “maintaining order in the nation”.
I wonder what the most significant concern of today is amongst the masses?
1. Property prices
2. American multinational companies
3. PAYE
4. Consumer prices
5. Donald Trump or celebrity X
6. A political/social movement
7. A sports team
8. A TV series
All commentary so far is of a very high caliber, which I will not match!! Ireland is not unique in its transformational morphing. The western industrial democracies are under attack as they stand in the way of the New world Order. I have long regarded the Judeo/Christian philosophy as the basis of modern Western democratic thinking with the emphasise on the each individual being as valuable as any other in the eyes of God. This allows for the one man(person) one vote principle to operate.There is little doubt that nature ordains the basic family unit as the basic building block… Read more »
Excellent observent cocommentary and great article. Fundamental to all argument is Q/ P ( Quantity / Price) or more specifically Quantity / Value. Children had no value in 1980 as they were plentiful and therefore abusable. ( Hence revelations) People their happiness, individualism and freedom were all put on the “obscure alter” of “the national interest”. This was enforced by the Irish language mafia / Mass / crappy Irish TV on an overpriced set /FF gobshites/ GAA / crappy food and over priced air fares to get out of the place. We had some writers / comics who thankfully tracked… Read more »
During the middle eighties people headed north to do their shopping. With the nominal value of the punt heading for 120 % the value of sterling, expect ireland plc to receive a kick in the nuts pre Christmas.Plus ca change. The economy may melt as fast as after the second oil crisis in 1979.Average Dublin house prices were 20 grand.The economy is built on the trick of zero interest rates, they should be at least six per cent, as set by an Irish central bank.I will never feel European,anyone got spare tickets for the Ryder Cup in Paris?Stars and Stripes… Read more »
More false flag attacks on the way to justify the expansion of US democracy to the Middle East!! russia warns of perfidious Albion in league with al Qaeda. The white hats will be useful again rescuing innocent civilians.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-25/us-says-assad-will-use-chemical-weapons-idlib-russia-warns-staged-provocation
More progress from that vibrant emerging economy, south Africa. Get rid of the competent farmers. They can always buy food from Zimbabwe another success story.
https://needtoknow.news/2018/08/uk-prime-minister-theresa-may-visiting-south-africa-announced-support-land-expropriation-white-farmers/
Just to be safe. Disarm them first. They may object to being robbed of their land.
https://needtoknow.news/2018/08/south-africa-orders-300000-gun-owners-turn-weapons-government/
I am grateful to David for allowing all and sundry to comment without censorship but the kindest thing I can think to say about this terrible article is that at least he has noticed the changes. Forty years ago Ireland was still Ireland, just about, despite the menacing underswell (is that a word?) and the inevitable disaster looming (it is looming closer now and we can speculate with more confidence about what form it will take). Now Ireland does not exist and it has not existed for about the last eighteen months by my estimation. And I cannot see it… Read more »
I wonder when people will get real and demand their own national currency not owned and run by a central banker, as a form of national stability. Not likely as they are too busy expressing “free love” to the world at large!! *J. Johnson’s Latest 8/30/18 Europe and South America are in a currency crisis right now Good Thursday Morning Folks, We start our day off with the precious metals trading flat to lower with Gold at $1,210.20, down $1.30 within a trading range high so far at $1,214 with the low at $1,206.20. Silver is down as well with… Read more »
The demise of the USD and the rise of the Petroyuan. The “new” silk road includes a settlement method that replaces the US controlled SWIFT. Oil trade and money exchanges are sidelining the US. Is The Petroyuan Behind The USA’s Insane, Catatonic Frenzy? Nicholas Biezanek The foundation of the global monetary system over the last 45 years is fracturing in plain sight and its demise is generating a series of interconnected and highly incendiary events that will result in a denouement that renders the resultant world order far different from the USD hegemony to which most of us are accustomed.… Read more »
EUROPE IS BANKRUPT The situation is the same in the West too. Europe is totally bankrupt. The EU elite is desperately trying to keep a collection of disparate nations together by coercion combined with forcing debt onto any nation who threatens to exit the EU or Euro. Greece and Italy should have left the EU long ago, introduced their own devalued currency and renege on the debt to the EU. But they were stopped by Brussels. Now they will fall with the rest of the EU. The UK people voted to leave the EU but Brussels are using any means… Read more »
The economy is, as predicted, being sucked dry by the accumulated debt repayments plus monthly interest payments.
http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/the-economy-is-collapsing-under-the-unbearable-weight-of-debt/
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/economic-doom-returns-emerging-market-currencies-collapse-to-record-lows-as-global-financial-chaos-accelerates
The swamp critters are being exposed
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2018/08/31/hannity-panel-explodes-over-news-muellers-righthand-man-was-in-on-russia-hoax-this-should-kill-the-probe-669543?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=BPR%20Email&utm_campaign=DMS
Tony,
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/ivan-yates/banks-still-profit-from-ministerial-cowardice-37272257.html
This is how failed politics and failed bankers work in 2018 Ireland. I have said on numerous occasions that politics has nothing to do with solutions. Solutions are based on good communication and logic.
Politics is for Lap Dogs. eg RTE current affairs staff.
Tony, I think I understood the bank guarantee and believe that it is one of the reasons Ireland can now have access to funding of less than 1%. Terms and conditions for failed bankers and organic banking should have been set. The failed bankers bailout increased the Irish National Debt by 130 %. The worst value for money public service in the world bailout cost 85bn and increased the Irish National Debt by 170%. RTE have never mentioned this bailout. The archives and data tell us that RTE are of course political. Political but using public funds. At the time… Read more »
Wimpy Economics.
200bn+ national debt. Annual costs ?
445bn pensions liability. Annual costs ?
Budget surplus promised this year after 5 years growth.
Apropos of nothing:
Siemen’s is starting to test their electric, driverless, rail-less tram – matching systems and projects which are now operating and being developed in Singapore. The long process of the displacement of railed transport with electric/rail-less/driverless – battery/capacitor powered transport has begun.
@Tony Brogan
The whole gammiolose will in the end will give us all a great deal of grief: but – but – what the hell.
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