Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened with me.
OK, here’s a question. I’m not trying to be insulting or provacative, it’s just food for thought. I haven’t been in Ireland since 1980 and will probably never get to go back. But Ireland used to be a poor and troubled country, one of the most backward in non-communist Europe. Then came the Celtic Tiger, tech industries, etc. The tiger was mostly a bubble I guess, and now they are again one of the economically troubled European countries. And in the meantime it seems that the Catholic Church stopped having so much influence. The young, particularly young women, are mostly unchurched(like here) and do a lot of hard drinking and partying( like England) and are very secular and permissive in their views on Social issues( like here and England). I glean a lot of this from Marian Keyes novels, which I realize are novels. But I wonder how happy the average Irish person is today and if they are any happier than when the church, severe and patriarchal as it was, had so much influence. Have they really made progress?
Anybody here actually from Ireland? Are the Marian Keyes novels accurate?