The Origins of cute hoorism in Ireland

[Thus]

Cute hoorism is an irish character trait, that is often despised, emulated and often admired. Whether it's politicians, property developers, bankers, musicians, heads of sports associations, heads of charities, farmers, police etc. From the top of the social ladder to the bottom, black marketeers, dole cheats, civil servants etc. In nearly all walks of life, cute hoorism is alive and kicking in Ireland. In other countries, some of what has gone here would not be tolerated in the slightest. The expression "cute hoor", exists in no other language other than English (the irish version). Other cultures prefer to use the more popular adjectives to describe this behavior; dishonestly, corruption or deception.

I've always wondered why cute hoorism has flourished in Ireland, and how this sort of behavior came about.

My own theory comes from the famine period in our history. Cute hoorism flourishes often in times of great panic, where people of influence take advantage of other people in often desperate circumstances under the guise of helping those people out. I was reading a book about the famine and in one passage, the author explains that many poor and desperate people were either coerced or cajoled by more affluent people to give us something valuable of theirs in order to receive either food, shelter or money in exchange. In many cases, the item exchanged would have had more worth than what they received for it, but because of their desperate circumstances they accepted. The author lists incidents of where poor starving people gave over items like jewelry, family heirlooms, parts of land, livestock in order to receive food that would suffice for a couple of days or money that would get them closer to a coffin ship. The more affluent person emerged from the transaction better off and also looking like he's helping these desperate people out. The author lists that such behavior was rampant up and down the country and not just in a rural setting either. Forget about the big English landlords, this was Irish inflicting misery on other Irish.

In our own recent history, we have seen again desperate people (those looking to get on the property ladder), be at the mercy of estate agents and bankers. Estate agents, inventing stories of counter offers to squeeze any last bit they can get out of the poor punter, the banker saying yes and yes every time they go back looking to borrow more money, knowing full well that they are confining their customer to a lifetime of debt.

Poor Paddy gets screwed again and again thanks to this rule, while newspapers publish stories of rich people getting mortgage write offs and debt relief, the little man is there to be milked until he's dry.

I think that this particular character trait is an ugly result of famine.

I would be keen to your thoughts on this topic.

 

[roc_abilly]

We are a childish nation.

Childishness lacks awareness and control, it is a state of dependence rather than independence, it is passive rather than active, it lacks awareness of interdependence with others, its behaviour adheres to safe limited patterns, it has erratic and shallow interests.

For some reason, many of the people in this country do not grow beyond an immature state.

We could also put it as that they don't grow beyond a peasant-minded state, recalling Zola's description of peasant mindedness as puerile egocentricity, being concerned solely with one's own short-term interest, understanding only coercion and thus kowtowing to any established authority, childishness, deceitfulness, myopia, meanness, greediness (if someone else is paying).



Or, O' Faolain's point of reference in the above is the Easter rising, and what we made of it: "The kind of society that actually grew up was a society of what I call 'urbanised peasants'. They were a society that were without moral courage; constantly observing a self-interested silence, never speaking in moments of crisis, and in complete alliance with an obscurantist, repressive, regressive and uncultivated church."

That's where the "cute hoorism" comes from, imho.

 

[Mowl]

I've been saying it since the year dot: Ireland is not a serious nation. It's a maelstrom of incompetence, ignorance, and greed. That the Irish people stand by observing failure after disaster but still doing nothing about it makes them complicit in the general rot affecting the entire population and all of her institutions. Not only that, there isn't a single department that isn't affected by the rot. It's everywhere from the bottom up and the top down. I often wonder if the children of the wealthy classes are even aware of how fucked up the lives of her poorest really are, and if they care at all. From personal experience, I seriously and strongly doubt it.

I left because every step I took forward required me to take two steps back further down the line. I can recall very clearly the point at which my heart was so broken with the state and the people around me that I knew I had to leave - now, not later. But coming from a community living mostly in poverty, that too was difficult to arrange, but I did it and I've only ever looked back over my shoulder to see how much she is today than when she was in my time there.

There were a number of factors the forced my hand, and the final one wasn't with the state: it was within my own professional circle. I had a sharp knife tear into my back by a situation that made me realize that yes: the wealthier classes have fuck all shame or guilt about fucking the disconnected and disenfranchised over even for the smallest of things.

The schools I went to, the churches I was sent to, the various organizations and clubs I volunteered for, the rot and the perversion was everywhere. There was no respite, nowhere to turn to and nobody caring even one fucking jot about the next man. Last night I got into a row with some old timer who was telling me that if I hadn't anything good to say about the five gobshites who died while trying to get a gawk at the wreck of the Titanic, then I shouldn't say anything at all. So I reminded the old buzzard that it's his generation who are complicit in Ireland being in the state she is today. That he and his generation kept voting for more and more pain from the two-party state. For decades after decade. He shut up and left.

I don't have any guilt or shame about that either: my country tore my kind of community to pieces with neglect and by victimizing the kids and women at the hands of the church state. Ballyer back then was a happy enough community, gangs of kids playing out on the streets, the priests driving by with the window open, Elvis or Perry Como on the tape deck, eyeballing us, winking at us and grinning like a Cheshire cat, scoping out the next victim. Even as a kid I saw what they were at, but there was fuck all could do about at eight or nine years of age.

Getting battered in the school by the lay and religious was par for the course. Perversion was rife and it fed off the fear the children had for these burly big perverts who had a smidgen of power and authority but who milked it for every drop they could. We never stood a chance.

That society then expected us to be their normal drones who went directly from the schools to the work in the factories that surrounded our community was also the rule. But not I. I started earning at a very early age using my artistic talents to land all sorts of cash paid nixers. I learned the value of money early on and made sure I wasted none of it: I set myself up with all the tools I needed for working in the art and music businesses and managed to cadge a decent income with some savings on top for security later on when the tough times hit.

Any crimes I committed were entirely innocent: robbing boxes of crisps from the King's factory over the wall to sell in school was probably the worst thing I did, but we were tormented with the smell of the crisps cooking six days a week, it never stopped apart from the Sunday day off. I considered that a tax, I figured that if they could tease me and invade my nostrils all day every day, then fuck 'em: I'll charge them for it. I never ate them myself, they weren't really that attractive due to their prevalence in our daily lives, so selling them gave me a sense of satisfaction and achievement. So the cute hoor in me began to show its face and once I realized that much, I knew what the game was: prepare myself for getting the fuck off that shitty little rock as soon as is humanly possible.

I've spent more of my life abroad then I did in Ireland, and it's been a hell of a ride so far.

To even consider the notion of having to back fills me with an ominous dread that grows in my tummy until I'm ready to burst.

It's a waste of a life to spend it in hate and loathing, but when you've had to endure eighteen years of Ballyer/Dublin/Irish life, you tend to despise the thing that's pinned you down for so long. Ireland bleeds her best - in both senses of the term. She bleeds you dry on the grim housing estates then she bleeds your pockets cry and holds you down in a variety of other ways. There's no escaping it either, not unless you throw the whole fucker overboard, sink your boat, and swim to any shore except the one you came from. Of course Irish immigrants are angry, most of them likely didn't want to move but rather had to.

Look at the likes of Declan Kelly and Val Martin?

They're cut from the same cloth, those two - and are 100% typical of the type of thick culchie/Paddy uncouth and uncultured pigs at the trough I had to get away from. And they're proud of it. Then they try to tell the cowering little fuckers who admire them (like Saul and Myles) that they're rich, men of means, landed gentry, incisive minds and a highly perception of exactly what the lay of the land is. IN reality they're just two of how many liars and losers? Where's the dignity in living like that? Lying to yourself, lying to everyone around you, and cheating the system every chance they can get?

I know now that had I stayed on, I'd have taken my own life long before now.

That or sank into drugs and alcohol.

But it's also been an informative lifestyle in retrospect, and when the time is right I would very much like to get the book I'm writing finally published. I feel a need to draw an end to the seething rage and endless loathing I feel about my country of birth. To just up and go isn't really possible - because you can't lose your own shadow. You have to find a way to live with what you can't rise above, and there's some massive heap of wet shit below me that, should I fall, then I'm back to being up to my neck in the slurry.

My quest is to ensure that never happens - again.

If anyone learns anything from my experiences, then that's even better.

You can't see the rot when you're on the little island. It's not until you get and take another perspective that you begin to see how bad things really are. Look at your national television channel? The same one that's been lying to you since the day you were born. Look at your government? Look at the homeless kids on the streets and the elderly blue-rinses on stretchers waiting to die in some hospital corridor next to a piss-stinking gents toilet. The rot. The horror. The complete breaking in two of ones heart at the mundane cruelty that she puts on her people.

Ireland is NOT a serious country - she's a basket-case.

Which therefore leads to only one conclusion: the Irish are nor a serious people either.

They're all - as the thread title suggests - the cutest hoors of all.

Sadly, that also means you, Dear Reader.

 

[roc_abilly]

I don't think some type of class division is where it is at.

What ails most people, right across "classes", is that there is an extra "cost" extracted from them, for every facet of living in this country.

Rent, interest, unearned profit, overhead, and a host of other economic "rents". That's at the root of it.

Recalling classical economics distinguished between productive and unproductive activity, and hence between wealth and overhead.

So who is it being unproductive and tapping everybody's pocket, overcharging, at the shops, for your energy, for your rent, interest and mortgage?

And who's being productive, actually giving something back to their society in tangible terms people can relate to?

Those are the dividing lines.

Again, it comes down to the individual attitude. You ask yourself, what do I take, what do I give?

No doubt the parasites in the social studies departments, or the banks, or at RTE, or in the county councils, are doing the country no good, all at extortionate cost.

But some of the more "wealthy" class are actually productive, they're not draining your pocket for no benefit, they give something back.

Conversely some of the so called "working class" are not much better than the former, they are also a drain on the country and don't see the obligation to try and give something back.

(Whatever it is they think they might give back. The measurement of it is only their ability, where their talent, or vocation lies.)

Somewhere along the line that basic social contract was subverted. One's life ambition became to land "a cushy number", and that goes for all the classes in Ireland, it is a social contagion that runs right through the life of this country.

 

[Lumpy Von Talbot]

Convinced it dates back to colonial days when the 'cute hoor' was a survival strategy. It is also the origin of the 'Irish joke' by the way. Safest response when questioned by authority or officialdom was to let the mouth hang open and go 'hah?'

Much of Irish national social development necessarily had to happen in an underground way. It was subversive by its nature and that transferred along to the modern state along with the fact that democracy never developed in Ireland in a natural way. It suddenly arrived in theory anyway along with the appurtenances of democracy and Republic but was never taught in principle.

So what happened, and you can plainly see this today, is that the old 'Sept' system resurfaced with the disappearance of the colonial authority.

What I mean by that is that Septs took over- you can see it in informal groupings such as the 'Maple 10,' and the 'Golden Circle' septs. It permeates every aspect of Irish social life. The gardai are a sept. Publicans are a sept. Politicians are literally divided into septs.

It will take another hundred years probably for the development of a sense of principles outside of whatever the sept and one's self can cram down the gullet while no one is watching.

France and Ireland are Republics, politically, and democracies. France had its dark knights of the Republic who went out from Paris as teachers to the Departments and brought an education with them that included Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite, principles outside the self and of national mien.

In Ireland teachers were the sons and daughters off the socially conservative rural farm who weren't going to inherit any land so they needed a professional respectable career and they brought with them their priest-ridden ways which for a long time were a bulwark against change. Their natural aspect was conservative. It was only in 2011 I heard an Irish teacher's union representative say on national radio 'teachers are the creme de la creme of Irish society'. That just shows you the notions certain professions in Ireland are wont to retain.

Imitation of the old colonial masters and their social strata of lower, middle and upper class.

It will be some time yet before a Republic in Ireland in anything more than school books and fanciful notions attached to past heroics. In the meantime the Sept system is very visibly in its place.

 

[Mowl]

Another and current sept would include Irish hoteliers.

I was reading yesterday about the singer Talyor Swift performing two shows in Dublin next year and the people who booked their quality hotel rooms early to avoid disappointment but then had even more disappointment heaped onto them when the hotels deleted their bookings and tossed out a few lame excuses about how those rooms were overbooked and how they now cost several hundred per bed per night.

One enterprising landlord is letting a two-bedroom house for the weekend of the shows for €20,000.

Of course the two terms highlighted above wouldn't mean what they say anywhere else but Ireland.

Enterprising; like a rat in a chicken.

Quality; cold running water and one towel, no toilet paper but the bar's open all night for residents.

Ireland has all the class and sophistication of Val Martin at a Sunday buffet down the local two-star with a tray instead of a plate, two small gardening spades as knife and fork, and a bucket of Harp/Smithwick's slops from under the counter by the hand-washer usually used for rinsing out the rusty Brillo pads and storing the drinking (tap) water glasses.

I have no idea who or what Taylor Swift is apart from her image on the front pages every once in a while.

Musically, I have no idea what she does or what she sounds like - which reminds me that chances are I know and hum along to her dirge without even knowing it while tripping down the dried foods aisle up at the local kauppakeskus. But it seems she's big in Ireland, which only makes me think it must be shite given Ireland's recent 'star' shows like Garth Brookes doing a five-nighter or Boyzone re-uniting for a few shillings more.

But if they can squeeze sixteen hundred euros each out of a dozen pairs of bunk beds in a dormitory overlooking the motorway out to Montrose then good luck to them - because some people deserve to be conned.

 

[Lumpy Von Talbot]

Must be some dopey fuckers back in Ballinapuddle. Why can't they just fly to the States or UK to see the gig? Be a lot cheaper and they'd get a few days away out of it.

I wouldn't pay that sort of money if David Bowie rose from the dead with a backing trio of jesus, allah, and yahweh.

 

[Mowl]

Must be some dopey fuckers back in Ballinapuddle. Why can't they just fly to the States or UK to see the gig? Be a lot cheaper and they'd get a few days away out of it.

Some people have all the imagination and sense of adventure of a door hinge.

They deserve to get it right on the bridge of the nose for being so tiny minded and rural.

Their favourite Bowie lyric:

'I never done good things (I never done good things)
I never done bad things (I never done bad things)
I never did anything out of the blue..'

I wouldn't pay that sort of money if David Bowie rose from the dead with a backing trio of jesus, allah, and yahweh.

Bowie will never die.

His body might have given up but the music still breathes.

 

[David]

I think one of the major issues with post-independence Ireland is that people here still see themselves as rebelling against the authorities, including those who are actually within the corridors of power themselves. One infamous example is the Healy-Rae brothers of Kerry with their gombeen, cute hoor, 'we'll battle the Dublin government at any cost' malarkey. It's a mindset which shouldn't have survived independence. I imagine it goes back to the days of trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the British or Anglo-Irish landlord / government. Make an eejit out of the Englishman in Dublin Castle by acting the eejit yourself...that way the British administration will be none the wiser as to what you're really up to, or capable of.

Speaking of the Normans (GCT), I don't think we've changed much as a people over the past thousand years. Only instead of in-fighting within various kingdoms and túatha, we're battling each other on the grounds of what parish or county we inhabit etc - the same petty mentality which allowed for the Normans to walk into Ireland unopposed is still prevalent.

The 1916 Easter Rising - it was fought in the main by idealists, poets, social reformers, teachers etc. Yet those who took the reins of power in post-independence Ireland were the furthest thing imaginable from idealists...more like hard-nosed opportunists spread across two political parties who'd throw their own grandmother under the bus if there were a few shillings to be made in doing so. Whenever people ask 'What would the men and women of 1916 think of the Ireland they helped create'...to which I always feel like replying 'Shouldn't it be bloody obvious what they'd think? Would you risk a bullet to the head or a trip to the gallows just so a bunch of homegrown spivs can sell your future along with those or your children's and grandchildren's down the river?'

 

[David]

Are travellers an oppressed ethnic minority? Or are they simply being cute hoors, using the current climate of political correctness to their advantage?

 

[Mowl]

Most traveling people I know and have dealt with have been:

(a) honest to a fault
(b) sharp as blades
(c) well aware of how they're perceived

All three qualities are used daily and to their best advantage.

The travelers who came to our house for food and things 'for the babbie' were old school people who lived permanently on the road. Later on their descendants moved into Labre Park, just outside Ballyfermot limits. Those travelers are a different breed, some of the worse off in the entire traveling community.

But for what it's worth I still respect the true breed of Irish gypsies: back in the day they were your real seanchaí, with news from around the country brought to life in your lounge over tea and cake. The passing of coins as pocket money for the kids was also part of the newscast. In return you got their undying friendship and loyalty. One of the main reasons my Mam is perfectly safe in Dublin 10 has everything to do with her magnanimity and refusal to judge people by labels bestowed on them by snobbish others.

I refuse for the same reasons: and the last travelers I worked for was a family out near Saggart who had a house they based themselves in even though they were blackballed by their neighbours for having a caravan in the driveway. The Dad was a huge Bob Marley fan and hired me to paint a mural in their bedroom. They were so kind, funny, interesting, and charming in every way with endless offerings of tea, cakes, sandwiches, weed, hash, a few drinks, etc, etc. I took none bar the weed and they tipped me by doubling my payment. Then drove me home to Mam's house: where they insisted on meeting her to say hello.

As ever, she opened the doors wide and they were grateful but it was too late, though they'd love to call by some other time.

My Mam's an Irish Queen, pure Dublin/Ballyer royalty.

Keep in mind: once you're outside Ireland, there aren't any 'knackers/culchies/scumbags/cunts'.

They're all simply Irish people.

Many Paddy and Bridie types don't seem to understand that simple fact of life beyond the Pale.

 

[Electricity]

Most traveling people I know and have dealt with have been:

(a) honest to a fault
(b) sharp as blades
(c) well aware of how they're perceived

All three qualities are used daily and to their best advantage.

The travelers who came to our house for food and things 'for the babbie' were old school people who lived permanently on the road. Later on their descendants moved into Labre Park, just outside Ballyfermot limits. Those travelers are a different breed, some of the worse off in the entire traveling community.

But for what it's worth I still respect the true breed of Irish gypsies: back in the day they were your real seanchaí, with news from around the country brought to life in your lounge over tea and cake. The passing of coins as pocket money for the kids was also part of the newscast. In return you got their undying friendship and loyalty. One of the main reasons my Mam is perfectly safe in Dublin 10 has everything to do with her magnanimity and refusal to judge people by labels bestowed on them by snobbish others.

I refuse for the same reasons: and the last travelers I worked for was a family out near Saggart who had a house they based themselves in even though they were blackballed by their neighbours for having a caravan in the driveway. The Dad was a huge Bob Marley fan and hired me to paint a mural in their bedroom. They were so kind, funny, interesting, and charming in every way with endless offerings of tea, cakes, sandwiches, weed, hash, a few drinks, etc, etc. I took none bar the weed and they tipped me by doubling my payment. Then drove me home to Mam's house: where they insisted on meeting her to say hello.

As ever, she opened the doors wide and they were grateful but it was too late, though they'd love to call by some other time.

My Mam's an Irish Queen, pure Dublin/Ballyer royalty.

Keep in mind: once you're outside Ireland, there aren't any 'knackers/culchies/scumbags/cunts'.

They're all simply Irish people.

Many Paddy and Bridie types don't seem to understand that simple fact of life beyond the Pale.

This is a bit of a theme with you..

Here's Mowl talking about the Aboriginals (in Australia) -

Post in thread 'Australia: The Desert Continent' https://islepoli.com/threads/australia-the-desert-continent.68/post-3530

 

[David]

Most traveling people I know and have dealt with have been:

(a) honest to a fault
(b) sharp as blades
(c) well aware of how they're perceived

All three qualities are used daily and to their best advantage.

The travelers who came to our house for food and things 'for the babbie' were old school people who lived permanently on the road. Later on their descendants moved into Labre Park, just outside Ballyfermot limits. Those travelers are a different breed, some of the worse off in the entire traveling community.

But for what it's worth I still respect the true breed of Irish gypsies: back in the day they were your real seanchaí, with news from around the country brought to life in your lounge over tea and cake. The passing of coins as pocket money for the kids was also part of the newscast. In return you got their undying friendship and loyalty. One of the main reasons my Mam is perfectly safe in Dublin 10 has everything to do with her magnanimity and refusal to judge people by labels bestowed on them by snobbish others.

I refuse for the same reasons: and the last travelers I worked for was a family out near Saggart who had a house they based themselves in even though they were blackballed by their neighbours for having a caravan in the driveway. The Dad was a huge Bob Marley fan and hired me to paint a mural in their bedroom. They were so kind, funny, interesting, and charming in every way with endless offerings of tea, cakes, sandwiches, weed, hash, a few drinks, etc, etc. I took none bar the weed and they tipped me by doubling my payment. Then drove me home to Mam's house: where they insisted on meeting her to say hello.

As ever, she opened the doors wide and they were grateful but it was too late, though they'd love to call by some other time.

My Mam's an Irish Queen, pure Dublin/Ballyer royalty.

Keep in mind: once you're outside Ireland, there aren't any 'knackers/culchies/scumbags/cunts'.

They're all simply Irish people.

Many Paddy and Bridie types don't seem to understand that simple fact of life beyond the Pale.

That's very true. When over in England the English will see you as being a Paddy...even if you're an Ulster Unionist. There's no ifs or buts - if you're from the island of Ireland then you're Irish to them.

One thing I admire about travellers is that they didn't get caught up in the whole Celtic Tiger craze of trying to appear Middle Class...which they'd probably find effeminate and emasculating. It'd be great if a convoy of them moved into Dedham, allowing their dogs to shit on Dan's front lawn.

 

[Electricity]

This is a bit of a theme with you..

Here's Mowl talking about the Aboriginals (in Australia) -

Post in thread 'Australia: The Desert Continent' https://islepoli.com/threads/australia-the-desert-continent.68/post-3530

So you see here Mowl tells us that he was desperate to "talk to some Aboriginal people" in the museum (and get away from the horrible white people)

lol.. There wouldn't be a museum if it wasn't for white people and any Abo you might talk to there would have significant white admixture, i.e. above 60 IQ and not permanently smashed

 

[Mowl]

This is a bit of a theme with you..

What is?

Calling you out as the plonker you are?

Here's Mowl talking about the Aboriginals (in Australia) -

Thanks, I know you can't get through a day without me.

You and Wolf Wooftie.

 

[Mowl]

So you see here Mowl tells us that he was desperate to "to talk to some Aboriginal people" in the museum (and get away from the horrible white people)

Paddy's descendants are not my kind of people, see.#

lol There wouldn't be a museum if it wasn't for white people

...robbing everything they could everywhere they went?

Yeah, right.

and any Abo you might talk to there would have significant white admixture, i.e. above 60 IQ and not permanently smashed

Abo?

What's an 'Abo' Seamus?

 

[Electricity]

Paddy's descendants are not my kind of people, see.#



...robbing everything they could everywhere they went?

Yeah, right.

Abo?

What's an 'Abo' Seamus?

You don't know, you can't figure it out

Every day your stupidity never ceases to amaze me

 

[Mowl]

You don't know, you can't figure it out

We've all figured you out a long time since, Seamus.

Every day your stupidity never ceases to amaze me

Good man, Shay: your inner green-eyed monster makes me laugh.

You say I'm stupid because I'm Ballyer: grand - I get that all the time.

But that doesn't mean I haven't outsmarted and outwitted you (and your twenty-four other names/accounts) every step of the way to here.

You're a walking time-bomb of idiocy, ignorance, and self-destruction.

You make me laugh.

 

[Lumpy Von Talbot]

So you see here Mowl tells us that he was desperate to "talk to some Aboriginal people" in the museum (and get away from the horrible white people)

lol.. There wouldn't be a museum if it wasn't for white people and any Abo you might talk to there would have significant white admixture, i.e. above 60 IQ and not permanently smashed

I think you'll find that was me rather than the Mowl. Well up to your usual forensic standards. And I wasn't 'desperate' to talk to some aboriginal people. I would have liked to. But white Australians kept bouncing in and out of my sight lines like fucking kangaroos.

I'll always be grateful to Australia for making me realise that I should avoid countries that don't recognise reading as a pastime.

 

[Electricity]

We've all figured you out a long time since, Seamus.



Good man, Shay: your inner green-eyed monster makes me laugh.

You say I'm stupid because I'm Ballyer

Incorrect

grand - I get that all the time.

But that doesn't mean I haven't outsmarted and outwitted you (and your twenty-four other names/accounts) every step of the way to here.

You're a walking time-bomb of idiocy, ignorance, and self-destruction.

You make me laugh.