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Stories from the Celtic Tiger Years Mod Warning in OP PLEASE READ

chops018

Does anyone have any good (or bad) stories from the Celtic Tiger years?

You always hear phrases about how people partied etc., was there just a constant flow of credit available to people and people actually taking the money e.g. was there actually teachers on circa €30k a year buying a house and car and an apartment somewhere.

I was in school and college during these years, graduated into the recession, so I didn't really see what was fully going on at the time bar the fact everyone was working and had money. My dad was working on the buildings on great money and my mam was working away also, we were never stuck really money-wise, also rent seemed to be a lot cheaper back then and fuel and also my college fees were only around €800 a year along with wages being fairly similar to what they are now (from what I can remember anyway, will stand corrected if I am wrong)

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BrianD3

Love the posts about helicopters, a property developer neighbour of mine had one that would regularly takeoff and land in his garden. Not sure if he flew it himself or had a pilot. Anyhow it was "only" a Robinson

Just as with cars, there is a hierarchy.

El_Duderino 09

bluewolf wrote: »

I always think of the "change in the bin" stories

Was it ever true? Sounds a bit like the woman leaving the buggy at the bus stop.

Sky King

dotsman wrote: »

Luxembourg is one of the best cities in Europe for a lad's weekend. Absolutely nothing boring about it.

Yea if you want to spend a weekend experiencing what a Sunday afternoon in the IFSC is like

thecretinhop

Christ where to start

(1) Prop developer land next to us. top notch helicopter. wife used fly twice a week to shopping in dublin. 1000k a pop. all gone namad

(2) galway races utter buffer rednecks paying 500e to get stuck in traffic to drive to galway airport to fly for about 1 minute to arrive in style.

(3) a famous developer a little tired and emotional paid 50k extra for land. bank rang up keep it he says

(4) wifes Bulgarian friend laughing at fat irish rednecks paying 180k for a bargain a relative of hers bought same for 25k.

(5) stag nite in galway lad with his shirt ripped with a lot of 50s saying i cant get married without getting me hole i have 500 lads any joy?

(6) developer/fateen county low level minxeen
he loses it all. last house bank seizes. wet monday morn sheriff's etc to seize it. all arrive a jolly day out for some.
No sign of house. no worries bank guy rings to recheck myst be a mistake. comes back concered deffo right gps.
rings minxeen where is house.
your on top of it i knocked it and buried it at weekend.
hung up.
bank mgr had a double brandy dat night

anyhow loads more will get back

[Deleted User]

BrownFinger wrote: »

I used to pay for chicken fillet rolls with fresh 50s and throw the change in the bin on the way out the door.

I always think of the "change in the bin" stories

CrankyHaus

Richard Hillman wrote: »

.

Before the Covid Crash we were supposed to be having a boom but it was nowhere near what we had before. It definitely isn't nostalgia. I have been in a dead end job for the last 3 years, despite having a degree that I attained after the financial crash. If it were 2005-2008, I probably could have been naming my price to potential employers.

The Celtic Tiger gets a bad rep but it was a boom that everyone benefited from, as opposed to the non-boom of the last few years. Yes, lots of people lost the run of themselves trying to out do the Jones's via Bank Credit but they were just insecure people that needed to project an image.

For the people running the country this is not a bug, it's a feature.

In certain influential quarters one of the most bemoaned aspects of the Celtic Tiger was how high wages damaged our competitiveness.
Of course this concern didn't extend to high earners in the professions or at executive level, or high rents and other high living costs. But a concern that the drones brought down the whole system by being too greedy was very palpable.
I remember in the early days of the crash Peter Sutherland, famous for his own modest income of course, had a big opinion piece in the Irish Times where he raged against high wages.

helimachoptor

Guy i worked with, tried his hand a property developing. Had land with good road frontage in Kilbeggan.
Built 4/5 houses and sold them, so decided to built a big housing estate, but the recession hit and it turned into a ghost estate.
The bank rang him every week chasing money, had a heart attack (lived) but last i heard he was still paying them.

Not like that pamela flood and the restaurant guy who got a handy deal because they got to appear in the papers each week for a few months crying poor.

Myself and wife were going to a wedding, a couple of weeks before hand we got an updated invite to say it was now black tie only and only admittance would be in black tie. And also they didnt want gifts just cash. I cant remember the exact number but there was 200 or so due to go, about 70-80 turned up and most brought presents.
Bride spent most of the day crying

dotsman

Sky King wrote: »

So they went to Frankfurt - possibly the most boring city in Europe (after Luxembourg)?

Luxembourg is one of the best cities in Europe for a lad's weekend. Absolutely nothing boring about it.

Richard Hillman

As said before, there was a lot of going out to pubs and clubs. The Internet wasn't as widely available then so travel wasnt as big a thing with things like Skyscanner etc. Most people would still go to Travel Agents. Online Shopping wasn't as big, so places like Dundrum (which had only been built) and town were Choc a block.

One thing that was very different was the abundance of jobs. There were jobs everywhere. I walked into a tech support job at a large multinational after doing a basic ECDL course. I was nowhere near qualified for the job and didn't last long. I would probably need a degree for the job now a days.

Young lads were being encouraged to leave school and go onto the sites.

Before the Covid Crash we were supposed to be having a boom but it was nowhere near what we had before. It definitely isn't nostalgia. I have been in a dead end job for the last 3 years, despite having a degree that I attained after the financial crash. If it were 2005-2008, I probably could have been naming my price to potential employers.

The Celtic Tiger gets a bad rep but it was a boom that everyone benefited from, as opposed to the non-boom of the last few years. Yes, lots of people lost the run of themselves trying to out do the Jones's via Bank Credit but they were just insecure people that needed to project an image.

[Deleted User]

valoren wrote: »

The payouts from the SSIA scheme matured around 2005/2006. It was the second stage of a credit fueled rocket kicking in for many. Equity releases, thousands received from a government top up saving scheme, 100% plus mortgages, loan offers from credit unions, preapproved credit cards, unsecured bank loan offers. All that, no cattle. How did it all go wrong?

I had an SSIA, but other than that no financial institution ever offered me loans or or credit cards that I can remember, so again maybe it was only certain sections of society it was offered too?

Hector Savage

L1011 wrote: »

I was offered a 100% mortgage on a house in Kilbeggan when I was on 31k. Its affordability was based on assuming I'd rent rooms out to the rent-a-room max amount.

My parents talked me out of it.

I hope you thanked them !!! ... a lot!!!

howamidifferent

pgj2015 wrote: »

Sean Quinns daughters wedding cost 1 million euro.

And we are still paying for it with the insurance levys. :mad:

pgj2015

Sean Quinns daughters wedding cost 1 million euro.

pgj2015

enricoh wrote: »

Went for and got a business loan in 2005, the guy in the bank lost interest when I only wanted 100k, tried to convince me to take 250k and 'do the job right'. (And help his commission!)
Was putting up part of the farm as collateral and would be shot if it went sour so I stuck with the 100k thankfully!

I read that as went for and got a guinness loan in 2005.:D you probably could get a loan for guinness back then.

[Deleted User]

Its easy to forget a thing like this, but because of the downturn we were able to buy a house in a very nice area in other words an expensive and sought aftre area for a great price, so some did very well out of the down turn.

[Deleted User]

n 2007, a property developer booked Girl Aloud for his daughter's 21st. The group were reportedly flown by private jet to Dublin and performed on stage before mingling with guests. According to event planners, the cost of the band alone could have been anything up to €400,000.

Found this online, be hard to top that but I am sure some did.

valoren

The payouts from the SSIA scheme matured around 2005/2006. It was the second stage of a credit fueled rocket kicking in for many. Equity releases, thousands received from a government top up saving scheme, 100% plus mortgages, loan offers from credit unions, preapproved credit cards, unsecured bank loan offers. All Hat, no cattle. How did it all go wrong?

[Deleted User]

Did not affect me much as I trying to bring up two children mostly by myself, non of my family really affected by it either have one brother in the construction but his is shrewd and careful and by the time it all collapse he was in a position where it did not affect him.

It was much harder for my second daughter to get a job as a teen when the downturn came whereas her older sister always had jobs as a teenager and no problem getting a job either.

Maybe it was a very narrow section of society it affected, it would be far more interesting to see how many bounced back and are doing well now.

Sky King

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater wrote: »

The story went that their wives were going to Rome for the weekend, so the two lads drove them to the airport and when they had left, on a whim the lads booked themselves onto the next flight to wherever for a weekend on the piss without telling the women.

So they went to Frankfurt - possibly the most boring city in Europe (after Luxembourg)?

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Myself and a friend did a couple of weeks driving across Europe in summer of 2007 and we stopped off in Frankfurt for a night, ended up in a random bar chatting to two lads from Cork who were probably in their late 30s.

The story went that their wives were going to Rome for the weekend, so the two lads drove them to the airport and when they had left, on a whim the lads booked themselves onto the next flight to wherever for a weekend on the piss without telling the women.

buried

Yeah I had a great time of it but I stayed well away from the ridiculousness. Was making money, was plenty of work but never went above my station whatsoever. Was offered all the crazy bribes by the banks but kept well away. Knew it was a bag of trouble. But apart from that had a great time. Loads of gigs, bought loads of books and records that I still have and treasure. The wallop didn't really affect me only all the grimness elsewhere that came with it so I just stopped watching television.

Badly Drunk Boy

My life seems to be very lukewarm. I didn't really benefit from the Celtic Tiger (even though I own my house now, since 2017). But I also didn't suffer much during the recession (apart from the extra taxes). Or do great in the resurgence. And I haven't suffered financially during the Covid thing either, since I've been working away.

[Deleted User]

Also, know an elderly single man in Clare who sold a piece of land for €6 million. The same man could easily live on €200 a week. He was laughing at it, joking his home village was like Manhattan. Of course the land, which actually flooded at times, was never built on.
Pubs were always packed, the country definitely had a major drink problem. Went to my physio lately, a French guy here about 20 years. He said that one time people would frequently tell him about drinking double figures of pints the night before. Not being used to the Ireland of the time he was stunned at the alcohol culture, but he says he never hears that sort of thing now.
When I look back at the boom and bust it really shows the value of common sense. So called ‘experts’ were telling us the boom was sustainable, but many ordinary people knew better.
Because of the years I spent abroad I knew what a property crash was like and that it could happen despite predictions it wouldn’t, but there were a certain amount of people who simply did not believe that house prices possibly could decline. It was a hard lesson.
It has changed politics here, FF and FG combined don’t do much better than FF alone was doing during the Tiger years.

mikemac2

Can I add the often used Galway raceweek like Vietnam with the helicopters flying around. The Radisson had a helipad, maybe it still does, I’m not sure.

I went to an ATM machine in Renmore and the guy ahead of me took out €800 and well he didn’t alone empty the machine but I couldn’t use it as it went out of service

I worked in a hotel and €200 was cheap for a room those days. People falling into reception at 5am, barley using the room you paid for.

As a hotel night porter I learned a lesson that the “new money” often treated me like dirt but the true wealthy didn’t feel the need to impress or put others down

I often met one of the largest developers in the country Bernard McNamara. I’ve no doubt he was ruthless in business but to me he was always kind and his wife was lovely too. He later went into NAMA I think

I also worked at the racetrack in the infamous Fianna Fáil tent. People were nice to me, never a complaint at my side. I don’t recall Bertie Ahern drinking much at all but he was great for chatting to everyone. They had a comedian from Bull Island a politcal satire show who mocked them all so fair play, they could laugh at themselves. Brendan Grace did his routine also, the FF tent was good fun

Gruffalux

A handy thing about not experiencing anything different during the Celtic Tiger was that I also did not experience anything different when the world apparently melted in 2008. Really felt like a vaguely disinterested onlooker to both cycles.

Ok. There was one thing I remember just now about the Celtic Tiger - the child allowance kept going up and up. I was fairly surprised but that didn't stop me accepting it.

Homelander

I was quite the opposite. Was still in college leading into the recession so hadn't gotten to the point where I was living it up. I did get an OK paying job though, and there was no end of work, chance for extra hours regularly, etc all throughout the recession. I could've saved a fortune and actually used it sensibly but I blew it all on drinks and partying and senseless spending for years.

I think living in a city kinda insulated you from the true reality of the recession as well.

I was out several nights a week and the clubs we went to were always busy, all my friends held onto jobs as did my family, there was just never a sense of things actually being that bad in my social circle.

jack of all

I worked for a substantial developer during the Celtic Tiger years; I didn't see any helicopters but there was a lot high living for sure- nice cars, fancy holidays, holiday homes and the rest. It didn't end well for anyone (I was made redundant before the whole thing folded- a blessing in disguise) and a lot of people were stung in the finish. I was a mere employee but I knew it could never last. I didn't enjoy the whole crass consumption that went on during the boom and was relieved when it ended. I thought we'd learned a lesson or two but wasn't so sure when things had started to ratchet up again in the past 2 years or so..except this time no one could have forseen Covid 19. Hopefully the country can recover economically but I never want to see a building boom like that again- it's so destructive and ultimately end in a lot of pain- just like a bad hangover after a "great" night out.

duffysfarm

Attended a meeting one day and was told before it that we were meeting an up and ckming developer. After the meeting i remarked that the developer wouldnt know kne end of a shovel from the other and i got an awful bollicking for saying so. 2 years later developer was in nama

Got a letter from friends first to say i was pre approved for €20k loan. All i had to do was send through payslips. Applied for€10k and got cheque frkm them in the post in three days, couldn't believe it.

I remember working in an accountant office and they used to prepare letters of service ability for bank of Scotland. Basically it says that the accountant believed the mortgage applicant could make the repayments anx there was no comeback on the accountant . He was charging €300 to €500 a pop for each signature. Some of the people getting loans were repaying €5k a month interest only and i often wonder how they ended up

Have a relation sold a field for over a million to a developer in small village. Developer went bust and they bought it back off back for fraction of price they got for it.

antimatterx

whisky_galore wrote: »

Shopping trips to New York was another one.

As was holiday homes in Bulgaria

whisky_galore

Shopping trips to New York was another one.