Who ARE all these rich people?

mariaalice

Life has changed a huge amount too.

One of my sisters is married to a man who comes from a large family they all became professionals, some are very well off, the father had a skilled job but the thing is to buy a house where my brother-in-law grew up would cost a million today. The chance of a skilled worker buying a house there today is very very small.

Mister Vain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385851#Comment_119385851

Speaking of not driving much, most of them seem to be working from home as their cars are always in the driveways. I sometimes think they're all bitcoin miners or making serious money from OnlyFans. Jaysus I have too much time on my hands. 🤣

Glaceon

Lisa Stansfield was one, she lived in Dalkey for a long time.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385881#Comment_119385881

Forgot about OnlyFans

Also, travel around the world with some poor cat dressed in dolls clothing for the likes on tiktok.

Stream videogames.

Endless money to be made 😁

Ray Palmer

https://myhome.ie/residential/brochure/the-battery-sandycove-point-sandycove-co-dublin/4623596

You can see easily here somebody owning a very large valuable property but it isn't a millionaire's lifestyle or surroundings. It is closer to living in a shack

DOCARCH

My mother's only explanation for all the wealth (big houses/fancy cars) was drug dealing!

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386032#Comment_119386032

Have to say I’d be mortified if my mother was a drug dealer.

Ush1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385773#Comment_119385773

Lots of it is inherited of course. I worked with a guy who was in sales in an IT consultancy. Sorta Tim nice but dim vibes. He left randomly then and I asked someone about it. Turns out he was the fourth Earl of somewhere and the family owned loads of industrial units that they rented and he was now going to be looking after them. Another chap I work with, he's probably late twenties and from Monaghan. His da bought him a place worth millions in Sandymount. Da owns a haulage company, would never know any of it to speak with him.

hamburgham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385856#Comment_119385856

You often see that when large houses in expensive areas go on the market. Kitchens not changed in 50 years.

Enjoying the thread as I’ve often wondered about this myself. For me it’s Dartry. My jaw was dropping when I, only fairly recently was wandering around there and looking at the houses. There was a hell of a lot of wealth in this country.

hamburgham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386032#Comment_119386032

Well it’s never PAYE workers anyway.

growleaves

'Wages to house value was probably 1:3 at the time, whereas now its 1:7 or more.'

Its 1:9 in Dublin now and less outside.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385420#Comment_119385420

Ha I've finally sussed your real identity CHARLES O'CARROLL KELLY

You're only a Trump wannabe

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119387412#Comment_119387412

Don't mind that poor imitation. He wishes he was me.

But then, so does everyone.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119387216#Comment_119387216

Fella from a border county with a "haulage business".

Haulage used to be a fairly good earner up in those parts for some reason ...........

gary550

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385870#Comment_119385870

That's the reality of it

If you look in any well established wealthy area a lot of the people are millionaires by circumstances rather than income (I.E bought at the right time, now worth a lot more).

If we brought in a property tax system similar to some states in the US there would be a considerable amount of people fxcked

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386032#Comment_119386032

All my local drug dealers live in their ma's box room, I see the standard of living for drug dealers has reduced dramatically in that case. Maybe they should consider unionisation!

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058255983/who-are-all-these-rich-people

Ireland was not in stagnation all the time.

The 1960s and 1970s saw strong economic growth.

swimming in a sea

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385597#Comment_119385597

The curtains with the gold weights was in an episode of Lovejoy, so must have happened a few times in these big houses.

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385568#Comment_119385568

I had an aunt who bought a big house in Clontarf in the 70's. She was a teacher. Husband wouldn't have been on much more money. They did have foreign holidays. She loved flying to the US to visit relatives although I will say it was less frequent back then. Looking at the street now there's plenty of houses being sold for close to a million and some for a lot more.

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385795#Comment_119385795

It's the same all over the place. New builds for 600k,700k or more. And they're snapped up. I lived in maynooth until last year and those places are so out of my league.

JDD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119387603#Comment_119387603

Well true, but we were coming from a very very low base. And when the recession hit in the early eighties we had to massively up our tax rates, which leads me to believe that we did not have enough taxes coming in to cover basic government services. So even with the economic growth, we weren't awash with cash.

I just remember asking my parents where were the really posh suburbs when they were growing up/got married. And they said that Ailesbury Road (and surrounds), Foxrock, Killiney and Rathgar/Dartry/Terenure was where the real well off people lived, but that was it. Sandymount, half of Ballsbridge (the non-embassy end), Ranelagh etc, was bedsitter land. Blackrock, Booterstown and all the way out to Bray (except for Killiney) was bog standard family houses. There was a vague notion that some Anglo-Irish lived in big houses in Kilternan, and there were some richer horse breeders out towards Kildare, but that was it.

Now I get that back in the day you could get a four bed detached house in somewhere like Stepaside or Loughlinstown with a decent wage, because they were quite far out and public transport was pretty useless. But I didn't expect the manor houses with big driveways. There's loads of houses out here in stepaside that have a big gate and driveway, and you can't even see the house. Look at the houses near Malahide Castle too - not the new ones, the old mansions. And there's more of them out by Rathfarnham, Mount Venus Road and the like.

It seems there were plenty of places in Dublin in the 60's/70's/80's that you could buy a massive posh house on the down low. If someone saw your address as Ailesbury Road or Killiney, they'd immediately know you had money. But Rathfarnham? Sandyford? Not at all.

griffin100

It's an interesting subject!

IME there's a lot of wealth in this country, however not everyone flashes it about openly. And well off people don't make as much noise as other groups. Certainly in the last recession a lot of people rowed back on their spending but that was because it wasn't the done thing to be seen spending money.

When I was in college in the 1990's I knew one person who lived off Ailesbury Road in a red brick mansion and their dad was the owner of a large estate agents. I had one friend who lived in a huge house in Foxrock, and both his parents were medical consultants. Another friend of my wife comes from a huge house in south country Dublin and her dad is a barrister.

However the richest people I know now are not 'professionals' in the way that these others were.

One was an electrician originally, worked his way into sales, set up his own company which he sold for around €5m a few years ago and now has other companies making him a lot of money. He has a nice house and lifestyle, but is not flash - he has a 7 series and goes abroad a lot to play golf but after that he's very low key.

Three other seriously loaded friends sell things - one has a chain of shops and two import and sell industrial equipment. One of these equipment importers recently bought a large house in south Dublin and spend around a million refurbishing it - all done from cash. There is serious money to be made if you are involved in importing and selling on stuff that people will always need, especially if you can get the exclusive rights to sell in Ireland (and if your customers like to pay on cash e.g. farmers).

A chap I used to work with who was a plumber had a really nice house on Bath Avenue in Dublin worth serious money. He bought it in the 1960's when his job moved out south dublin as then Sandymount / Irishtown was not what it is now price wise.

I think tax evasion has played a big part in wealth accumulation for some people, especially in the 70's and 80's. Offshore accounts, cash payments, political connections, etc. all helped. That's harder (but not impossible) now.

Geuze

Here is an anecdote, whether it's 100% true I'm not sure:

O'Connor's pub in Salthill was so busy during the 70s, they charged 50p to enter the pub, and didn't serve stout due to the delays

Garavan's pub in Galway city centre was so busy at one stage, it was impossible to open the front door, there were so many people inside

Clearly, these publicans, and many other businesses, did very well between, say, 1964 and 1978.

Ray Palmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119389061#Comment_119389061

Sounds a little unlikely as that would be about the price of about 3 pints back then.

Mister Vain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119388179#Comment_119388179

Maynooth is a nice area. I work as a courier there some weekends delivering McDonalds to all the fancy houses. But yeah you're right, they're getting snapped up quickly. Mariavilla sold out in no time and they're building more houses across from it.

Ush1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119388456#Comment_119388456

Those places were the countryside. Like McMansions during the boom.

josip

I think the burning of the big houses during the War of Independence left a scar on the psyche of anyone who would have lived through it, even as a child. So those with old money quickly learned to keep their heads down (even more) and not attract attention to themselves or their property.

Ray Palmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119390199#Comment_119390199

I think it was much more to do with the nature of people when others flaunted their wealth up until the 1990's. When I grew up you just didn't show wealth as so many people had no money. Sometimes it was just aggression but often lead to attempted robbery. That really isn't an exaggeration. Saw a massive change in the 90s when showing wealth really was normal in places where wealth wasn't before. Lots of people showing off buying massive cars, TVs, fancy clothes etc... They really spent a lot of money on their kids too so they never had the feeling of not being able to get something when they grew up. The problem was some of the income was fleeting or may have been borrowed/credit based on the fleeting income increase.

Basically the wealth don't need to show how much they have where newly rich(even in their mind) want to flaunt it. There used to be a very real sense of make the best of what you have in Ireland up until the mid 90s

For Forks Sake

..

standardg60

The black market played a massive part, basically very little of the economy in the 70s/80s was above board, so while Ireland inc. was on it's knees plenty of money was being made, it just wasn't being declared. Everything, retail, construction, rent, legal and property services, agriculture (still is) was being run with a minimum tax liability. Instead of clamping down on it, the powers that be or wanted to be adopted a can't beat them join them approach, so brown envelopes abounded.

A lot of this money was invested in property because rent was basically a tax free income back then, someone owned all those bedsits mentioned above. Property price increases made instant millionaires of a lot of people in the early 2000s.

mariaalice

I am slightly surprised at how many people don't get the difference between official and unofficial Ireland although I do think that is changing.