During a birthday party at work today, we got into an amusing conversation about fraternities and the lack thereof in Ireland. In fact, the concept seems to be utterly foreign to the Irish. Those present in our group, ages 25-40, were baffled by the stereotypes they'd seen on American movies.
We questioned why this could be so, and one conjecture was that there is not much respect for authority in Ireland, so the structure of fraternities would be difficult to sustain. I think this is a weak hypothesis, yet I don't really know the answer. Excessive drinking certainly isn't foreign to the Irish way of life...yet that is precisely part of the difference: excessive drinking is a normal part of life in this culture, but it is more of a sport in the fraternities in the US...
Anyhow, the director of our group is American and told stories of his fraternities days at MIT, about pledging, rush, initiation, living in the frat house, etc. It was common knowledge for us Americans present, but the Irish (and those from other nations) listeners were absolutely flabbergasted. They simply couldn't understand.
Well, actually, some of them couldn't get past wondering why fraternities always had Greek letters. :)
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2 comments:
Hey, I'm an American who has also moved to Ireland. I'm currently doing a Ph.D. in Computer Science at UCD, and I was in a fraternity back home. I was curious if there were any in Ireland (hence how I found your blog). I noticed a similar reaction when I explained fraternity life to the Irish I have met so far. They just don't seem to understand why people do it.
Funny, so you've experienced it too! :)
My post-doc was at UCD...I have just moved back to Texas. Best wishes in your time there!
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