I think there are lad culture problems in Ireland but I think most grow out of it , I’d Hope .

When I was in secondary school we had the classic sub divides of the GAA playing crowd , the regular joes , the emos/ goths and then the hard lads /faux hard lads .

Now for my part I’d no trouble with the “boyrahs” mostly I think because the occasional time they slagged me they got no rise out of me and moved onto slagging those that they visibly annoyed until they had an excuse to batter them , they were my first taste of what I’d call toxic lad culture . Now the funny thing about them was that the ring leader of this group who went by his second name only , for this stories sake let’s call him dalton . I played football with him for about six months before he quit , and one the matches his mam gave us a lift . We get into the car and he’s like “heyor ma ye dayze ar tha ladz were bringin so move the poxy car “ and his mam in what can only be described as a posh Dublin accent says hello boys , It’s so nice to finally meet who (my son) plays sports with . I of course am taken aback and dig by asking questions , what do you do missus dalton ?im the head teacher of a primary school ... then it turns out his dad is a guard .

Now the reason why I thought of this story is I can’t think of how many “lads” I’ve met in my life now at this stage and I wonder how many come from homes like dalton that had two successful parents who clearly came from good backgrounds and yet all their son wanted to do was sell drugs , pick on others and portray themselves as some sort of i came from the hardest background imaginable when in reality they lived in a 4 bedroom in north Dublin . I find it strange that say himself had what I’d see from outside a much better situation than what I had with my family growing up and all he wanted to be was a scumbag really . Still boggles my mind .