Come on, folks, they weren't that bad. Certainly compared to some of the obnoxious, stuck-up brats you enounter from time to time -
"Bye Sarah… See you tomorrow… [To remaining friends]: Sarah's sotch a b*tch! How can she claim to have the biggest house of all of us. My house is as big as a focking hotel!"
(Actual conversation heard by my friend on the green Luas line the other day)
I thought the girls were quite grounded, given their millieu, and only bristled when Inchicore was being used as a byword for grotty "Eww… who could live there!?" unpleasantness.
Actually, I felt that the presenter belaboured the whole "You're living in la la land!" point. He repeatedly tried to impress on the girls that Jobstown / Kiltipper is the reality that a lot of ordinary people on their incomes have to live with. And the girls, with genuine charm, accorded this a respectful nanosecond of solemnity to his face before, later on, correctly dismissing it as completely irrelevant to them since they're not one of these ordinary people! They're good-looking south Dublin princesses with rich parents - 3 of them! - who would never allow them to move to an area considered even mildly unpalatable, let alone unsavoury. But they were game enough to go along with the charade for the sake of good tv.
So, Daddy and Mummy jump in to save the day, as you always knew they would. And the girls get an apartment they couldn't possibly afford under any other circumstances. And the rich continue to live in desirable areas of South County Dublin and people of more modest means continue to live in Kiltipper.
I don't think the show made a mockery of the efforts of "real people" to get on the property ladder. Thanks to the incredible appreciation in property values, an increasingly large number of people are in very fortunate situations. So why resent these girls for merely assuming their birthright?
For the majority of young people in the plusher suburbs of South Dublin, what was shown here was, if anything, an austere vision of what Mammy and Daddy will do for their cosseted progeny. Rockview wasn't exactly the 2 bed apartment in Monkstown they were looking for, after all. And how much was that huge detached house worth? Probably the guts of 1.5 million euro depending on the location.
("That goy is sotch a b*stard! How could he say our hoisse is only worth 1.5 million. It's worth at least 3 million! Bloody skobie! I bet he lives in Inchicore!")
/ Yes, I do.
// Bought house with no help from my parents but wouldn't have hesitated for a second if I'd needed their help.