Do you wish celtic tiger never happened?

buckfast4me

Just wondering, ok to start I am 23. (Ignoring complex economics and markets bla bla) I wish it never happened for the following reasons:

1) People have more money, but yet the average couple with young children can barely scrape by with the costs of houses, transport, childcare, food etc. Resulting in both parents usually having to work long hours just to get by. This wasn't the case when me and my brothers and sisters were raised (mid 80's, early 90's). My dad supported all of us in a middle-management job, not great money but paid the mortgage on a house in a middle-class area, esb, phone, heating bills etc (without the need for my mother to work) while living comfortably.

) When we were growing up, most of the best memories I have are being out and about with friends playing football, cycling, playing in neighbours back gardens, etc. Nowadays kids just get plonked in front of the xbox and turn into zombies. Maybe it's just my area but I rarely ever see kids out playing any more. That can't be good for them.

3) People were a lot more friendly in general. We hadn't as much money but we were happier, neighbours were more welcoming. There wasn't as much violence in society. There wasn't that air of "menace" around the place. Money turns people into assholes.

So that's it. Any thoughts/opinions?

Edit - might have been a bad idea posting this in AH and looking for serious replies, I am relatively new to boards so is there some sort of general "society" forum? If so feel free to move there. Thanks.

leninbenjamin

you're 23. that means you grew up during the Celtic Tiger (at least part). fail.

buckfast4me

Well I think it started around 97/98, I was 13 like. In relation to point 2) I am talking about childhood years.

Kernel

Interesting question. Ireland has changed for the worse in subtle ways, however, I remember times were tough and times are definitely better for the individual nowadays. Balance in everything is what we should strive for I guess.

Cool_CM

oh but man, then i'd totally have to give up my ipod

Beerlao

your poll doesn't make sense.

if i vote YES, it looks like "yes, i wish the celtic tiger never happened"

if i vote NO, it looks like "no, i wish the celtic tiger never happened"


but yeah, in the 70s, my mum and her brothers and sisters all had to leave the west of ireland and move to england to find work. i don't think this would be the case today. i think they probably would've put up with some extra bad manners in the street for not having to leave their homeland at the age of 16

buckfast4me

I know I tried to edit it afterwards, but seems you can't edit polls only the post.

Karlusss

It's left Ireland a bit culture-less and full of flat-screen TVs. It's not a bad place like, but it doesn't really feel like OUR place, or at least in the same way it did when I was 6.

bluto63

No, gimme more money

rossie1977

Celtic Tiger what the hell was that, a band never heard of the Celtic Tiger west of the shannon

Sangre

ask your parents if they wish they were still leaving the 80s.

Fremen

buckfast4me wrote: »

Just wondering, ok to start I am 23. (Ignoring complex economics and markets bla bla) I wish it never happened for the following reasons:

1) People have more money, but yet the average couple with young children can barely scrape by with the costs of houses, transport, childcare, food etc. Resulting in both parents usually having to work long hours just to get by. This wasn't the case when me and my brothers and sisters were raised (mid 80's, early 90's). My dad supported all of us in a middle-management job, not great money but paid the mortgage on a house in a middle-class area, esb, phone, heating bills etc (without the need for my mother to work) while living comfortably.

) When we were growing up, most of the best memories I have are being out and about with friends playing football, cycling, playing in neighbours back gardens, etc. Nowadays kids just get plonked in front of the xbox and turn into zombies. Maybe it's just my area but I rarely ever see kids out playing any more. That can't be good for them.

3) People were a lot more friendly in general. We hadn't as much money but we were happier, neighbours were more welcoming. There wasn't as much violence in society. There wasn't that air of "menace" around the place. Money turns people into assholes.

So that's it. Any thoughts/opinions?

Edit - might have been a bad idea posting this in AH and looking for serious replies, I am relatively new to boards so is there some sort of general "society" forum? If so feel free to move there. Thanks.

To summarise:
"Hey! You kids! Get off my durn lawn!"

Alessandra

Who wants to go back to the situation pre-Celtic Tiger? They were fairly depressing years in the late 80s and early 90s from what I was told.. My parents couldn't afford many of the luxuries which they today enjoy such as foreign travel. More people leaving the country than coming into it and massive unemployment. No thanks, I'll thanks Mr. Celtic Tiger for some very happy years and suffer the consequences of any possible downturn.

wordofmouth

I think the flat screen tvs games etc part of a wider shift in society in general rather then celtic tigers effect on Ireland.
Entertainment is more personal now with internet, loads of channels etc people can pick and choose what they want. Maybe celtic tiger made these things arrive quicker but it'd be like it is now regardless. Our country is better now i imagine. I'm only 21 so i guess I'm very much a celtic tiger baby don't know what twas like in the olden days!

JC 2K3

Being 19, I have distant memories of McDonalds employees being able to comprehend my order without saying it slowly and loudly.

That's about it.

Rb

No. It was a very good thing for this country and I only wish I was older at the time so I could have capitalised on it. Hopefully if I leave Ireland (the cost of living in Dublin is just too high these days) I'll be able to come back at a time where things are booming again and make something of it.

xOxSinéadxOx

i'd rather not leave the country to find a job thanks

phantom_lord

yeah, cause things were so much better in the 80s.

de5p0i1er

I miss the good old days everyone was poor and you could get a house for as little as £20,000. Things were much better back then.

connundrum

rb_ie wrote: »

No. It was a very good thing for this country and I only wish I was older at the time so I could have capitalised on it.

+1. I just started into bleedin real estate as the boom was finishing. Bah! That'll learn me for taking too long finishing my schooling

Overheal

i like the fact that i can up and leave from these shores when things go wrong and i wont have many reservations about it

that said I really dont want to go back to america. Please hang on to me for now, like a cold wet puppydog.

Jesus Wept

buckfast4me wrote: »

Money turns people into assholes.

No it doesn't, it reveals people's actual arseholeness, doesn't creates it.

The-Rigger

The-Rigger wrote: »

No it doesn't, it reveals people's actual arseholeness, doesn't creates it.

QFT

dcukhunter

Things are better now ya house's etc. costs more but wages have also gone up. I'm 29 now but when I started working you would have been lucky to get much more than 100 a week for 50-60 or more hours. Although I do agree with you that people were friendlier years ago. If you need a hand now most people will just walk on they seem too busy. But even with all that I still rather now than go back to the 80s, 90s or before.

Abi

dcukhunter wrote: »

Things are better now ya house's etc. costs more but wages have also gone up.

So has everything else. household bills, grocery shopping etc. Wages might have been lower, but so was the cost of living. And a house and car was an achievable goal if you kept your nose down. Certainly the term '100% mortgages' werent thrown around so loosely. I agree with OP on the point of the mother being at home (if that is what she chooses to do). I was lucky enough to have my mother at home, not thrown into childcare like I have to with my kids. I've started a new job recently - F/T. I do not see them. I think Im going to jack it and try get P/T, because they've taken so badly to it. If scraping by is what we have to do, then so be it. They see me taking them out of bed in the morning, then putting them back in at night. Its the pits. My mother would have taken up Christmas work or taken in students if she wanted throw a few quid in the pot for a holiday. But she was always there when we needed her.

Everyone has their own take on things, but I think its become too fast-paced and the game has gotten bigger and indeed scarier for most. To summarise, I could have done without the CT.

leninbenjamin

buckfast4me wrote: »

Well I think it started around 97/98, I was 13 like. In relation to point 2) I am talking about childhood years.

no it started well before that around, 93 - 94. it actually ended in 99. the rest of the growth after that was from just property and increases in population.

WooPeeA

You can go aboard for holidays, send the kids for good studies. That was imposible before.

You said people are not that nice anymore. I do not agree. Irish are the most friendly people in the world. That's why they are always welcomed with smile.

That's a good thing.

The bad thing is that kids have enough money for drugs and alcohol.

Marksie

you know i am in two minds about this one.

One one hand when i was at Uni and then beyond it was during the thatcher years and i really could see the parallels with the loadsamoney types and teh way society went for the grab grab grab.

I think that it was good for the country in soem resepcts, put you on the map as it were as a contender.
BUT I think that it has been woefully mismanaged, once the cronies and the moneygrabbers had creamed of the top of it, it juts didn't filter down.
I think that if you look back in a few years time it will be seen as a missed opportunity to have built a solid foundation in both education, health, infrastructure.
Its bertie's legacy, a few get rich and the rest is mismanaged.

Sherifu

Marksie wrote: »

I think that it was good for the country in soem resepcts, put you on the map as it were as a contender.
BUT I think that it has been woefully mismanaged, once the cronies and the moneygrabbers had creamed of the top of it, it juts didn't filter down.
I think that if you look back in a few years time it will be seen as a missed opportunity to have built a solid foundation in both education, health, infrastructure.
Its bertie's legacy, a few get rich and the rest is mismanaged.

Well said, agree with all of that.

Kipperhell

From what the OP is saying you would swear that things were good before and that without the celtic tiger all things would have remained as they were in Ireland. Many increased costs in Ireland are due to the world economy e.g. fuel, food etc...
The average couple in Ireland left the country and were unable to afford anything. A lot more people were unemployed with no prospect of employment. The belief that only a few benefited is IMHO nonsense. Many people have a better quality of life but in saying that relative poverty has increased.
The whole children playing on the streets ending is really a world wide thing and not unique to Ireland. In the 80s people claimed computer games were doing what you now claim is happening. In the 50s in the US there was similar belief on comic books.

Basically don't believe the media and try not to look back on the past with rose coloured glasses, things change and some things never change.

Tigger

tigers are great i can't belive that kids are going aroung thinking that the tiger did anything but good for them
see the henry the hioppo posters thats the 80
please da can i have a money box that only the bank can open
fun times
no video-players if something was on you missed it or watched it
you could not see a film if you didn';t go to the cinema till 6 years later at christrmas and then you parents told you to talk to grandad while they argued about washing up
tape playing walkmans were a half a weeks wages and the tapes were 8th generation mono copies via din jack from a record player
everyone drove crap cars
petrol an diesel was going up at a crazy pace
cans of coke had an extra tax on them a "super can "500ml was 0.5 vpunts thats 70c in todays money 25 years ag
to put that in context a pack of 20 major was 1.50