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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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joxer1988

Only one memory for me given my age...

In 2007, I was playing for the under 18s youth team of an LoI football club. I was the only lad doing the Leaving Cert in a team of 17 year olds. Rest of the team was working on a site making a few quid.

Came up in training one evening, why I was still in school doing the leaving when I could just drop out and work... The team manager (only adult in the group) said that I was "brain-dead" for sticking it out.

Was a bit of a weird scenario for me, playing football with working class lads but being middle class and quite privileged myself. I was lucky that because of my parents, I didn't need to work at 17/18... was able to sit the Leaving and take the career opportunities that came thereafter.

Didn't stay on touch with that team. Sometimes think about what they're up to now, I'm sure post-tiger era wasn't kind. Some class footballers though, I was out of place in that sense too!

NSAman

I worked my ass off during the “boom” made a lot of money but never spent it, probably for the best. Never understood how people were able to take holidays and buy all those new cars. Looking back I was probably lucky that I didnt get caught up in it all.

I remember going to purchase the first house that I bought. the mortgage broker asked me how much i wanted... just for giggles I asked how much I could get... he came back a few days later with a figure of 5 million.. to this day.. I am shocked that I would be even thought of as someone who could borrow that amount of money. I bought the modest house on a tracker (best decision ever) and that was the sum total of the borrowings.

When the boom was going I remember people wondering why I only had one house... why I didnt have the Marbella property etc etc... Was never brought up to be a borrower as such and could never see myself trying to pay back millions...

A few friends went broke, one committed suicide, the vast majority just couldn’t handle loosing the “wealth” they thought they had. I remember a friend (good job) got married to this wan.... they had a nice smaller home but it wasn’t enough, sold it and bought a massive 5 bed for them and the two kids. Herself had the best of everything in the house, dressed to the nines... one night I met him for a drink... he was very down, asked me how I managed to keep sane. while talking he mentioned his finances and asked me to see if there was anything I could do.

to say I was shocked that a guy earning a good salary was literally living off his credit card and couldn’t pay it was a massive shock. his missus who i never got on with, was a teacher, flatly refused to even go back to work. Eventually after lots of fights, she had to, the house had to be sold and eventually they broke up.

[Deleted User]

Got a mortgage on my own at 26. The numbers were all based on renting the rooms, plenty of overtime and pay increases.

I was lucky that I got a few years before the crash and continued to rent a room but yeah, we went from credit cards and constant increases in salary and unlimited overtime one day to no overtime, wage reductions and no increases expected.

House went down from 400k to about 125k and I bought at 270k.

It was hairy and we struggled for a while because at the crash we were in a fixed rate of 6% for the house but came out the other side pretty much.

I have kids now so I won't be going back to those days even if it was possible and it's tighter now because it's all still in our memories but I'm also wiser and more cautious as a result.

I never went mad on drugs or anything but I know lads that did. Builders and bankers mostly. Big bonuses at Christmas, shares, triple time in Sundays and half the time they were hungover or high. Some crashed like me, some survived because they're industry wasnt effected. The builder was out of work for a few years and had only just bought his place so he was hit very hard.

Luckily none of us ended up homeless and while some have gone on to to very well overall, others are not rich but not poor.

You reap what you sow

Optimalprimerib

Where I worked, lads were buying houses in the Dublin commuter zones such as Longford, portlaoise and Mullingar. They were doing their best to convince me to do the same but I held off thank fcuk.

They were miserable after buying them.

I also remember the company as a treat hired Eddie Hobbs to come in and give us money advice. Told us to look at Bulgaria for property investment and put money in northern rock. We all know what happened there.

Pinch Flat

Optimalprimerib wrote: »

.... also remember the company as a treat hired Eddie Hobbs to come in and give us money advice. Told us to look at Bulgaria for property investment and put money in northern rock. We all know what happened there.

Ah yes. Eddie "Cape verde" Hobbs.

PhilOssophy

John_Rambo wrote: »

Amazing how many people claim they knew exactly what was going to happen during the boom and predicted what was going to happen. Particularly on the internet.

I come across them all the time now but never ever came across them during the boom.

They must be worth a fortune now.

Maybe covered in the pages I haven't read yet. PLENTY of people (myself included) were thinking "this is madness" at the time. Just because they weren't saying it, didn't mean they weren't thinking it.

I spent my summer of leaving cert year on a site. I told the lads I was going to college in September. The sneery, condescending attitude was incredible. I remember one guy saying "you are going to study for 3-4 years to earn 20-25k, you could get a pass to drive a forklift (I can't remember the exact title) and you'd earn 3 times that in a few months." I didn't say a word and thankfully when I told my parents the story, my mother said to me "this won't last" and my father said "when the downturn comes, your education will stand to you more than the forklift pass". I never once heard them say that to anybody else and how right they were.

I see these lads all around me still, the lavish cars they were all driving at the time are now replaced by modest ones. Same story as many of the above.

A bit like most things in life, just because people don't say it doesn't mean people don't see through it. Unpopular opinions and all that.

Montage of Feck

"Lifestyle " oh how I hate that word.

Gorteen

Moved home from UK in 2000. Had sold house there and had approx 100k profit so was able to build house with no mortgage in the country. Wife & I worked in public sector and bank manager, who knew us personally, had us persecuted to take out mortgage on development "opportunities" as investment, guaranteed to be profitable, etc. It was a no-brainer to us because we had seen the property crash in UK in 1990's and could see this celtic tiger and Ireland was heading for similar. Remember parents of all kids under a certain age got €1000 per child as a one-off payment, the SSIA bonanza, etc...
I was chatting with a guy who told me he had borrowed €300,000 to buy a house in local provincial town. I was shocked because knowing that guy, I wouldn't have lent him €300 because he was a financial disaster... Needless to say the house was repossessed!

Sultan of Bling

I worked in the building trade during the boom. I hated the work but the money was good.

I was still living with the parents so no overheads and saved regularly.

There were a lot of warnings starting to come in about the state of the economy around 2007. Comparing our reliance on property to London in the late 80s and Tokyo etc. I started to worry.

People around me just buried their heads in the sand. "It won't happen here", and still going out and buying foreign property

I very nearly caved in and came close to buying a 1 bed apt in dublin for 320000. I was desperate for my own place. During the recession the same apt were going for 120000. Thank God I didn't succumb.

I got a job in the civil service as a clerical officer in 2007. My take home pay dropped by just over half. I didn't care because I just had a feeling things were going to go pear shaped and I knew it guaranteed job security.

I was ridiculed by the lads on the site at the time.

It's funny now with covid 19 and the current economic crisis that we are the ones now earning too much.

riclad

And there were many people who bought 3 or 4 apartments to rent out, when property values went down by 50 per cent they had a difficult choice. Continue paying 200k mortgages on
units that were only worth 100k or else go bankrupt. And now we are at the end of the economic recovery facing high unemployment and many shops and pubs closing down due to the covid crisis.

pgj2015

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Maybe covered in the pages I haven't read yet. PLENTY of people (myself included) were thinking "this is madness" at the time. Just because they weren't saying it, didn't mean they weren't thinking it.

I spent my summer of leaving cert year on a site. I told the lads I was going to college in September. The sneery, condescending attitude was incredible. I remember one guy saying "you are going to study for 3-4 years to earn 20-25k, you could get a pass to drive a forklift (I can't remember the exact title) and you'd earn 3 times that in a few months." I didn't say a word and thankfully when I told my parents the story, my mother said to me "this won't last" and my father said "when the downturn comes, your education will stand to you more than the forklift pass". I never once heard them say that to anybody else and how right they were.

I see these lads all around me still, the lavish cars they were all driving at the time are now replaced by modest ones. Same story as many of the above.

A bit like most things in life, just because people don't say it doesn't mean people don't see through it. Unpopular opinions and all that.

Your parents were kind of right but say you did get the forklift pass, earned a lot of money for a couple of years, then you loose your job in the recession. you are unemployed for 9 months, then go to college. You would have got the back to education allowance, 204 euro per week, 500 euro for books every year for the next 4 years. also if you were 23 or above when you found yourself unemployed, you would have been a mature student so you could basically choose any course you liked.

PhilOssophy

pgj2015 wrote: »

Your parents were kind of right but say you did get the forklift pass, earned a lot of money for a couple of years, then you loose your job in the recession. you are unemployed for 9 months, then go to college. You would have got the back to education allowance, 204 euro per week, 500 euro for books every year for the next 4 years. also if you were 23 or above when you found yourself unemployed, you would have been a mature student so you could basically choose any course you liked.

Yeah but I would have spent a few years in a circle I utterly hated. These lads spent every cent they had.

Just to compare the above idea (which I'm not knocking, its another way of looking at it. I graduated and walked into a job. Aged 23, I was planning on getting out of town travelling and living abroad for a few years and was working to get enough experience to get a well paying job abroad (which I did aged 25-26 which was a great opportunity).

If I was going back to college at 23, it'd be 30 before that opportunity presented itself by the time I studied and gained enough experience to do it. In my view, heading off at 30 is very late to do it. (Unless I wanted to go working on a site somewhere abroad and do the same thing I'd have ended up doing here).

Je ne regrette rien.

Claw Hammer

Two stories I recall, both involvig builders.
I went to see a Hong Kong tailor who had come to Dublin. he was advertising suits which seemed to be good quality and keenly priced. When I actually got in prices started to rise fairly quickly. The advertised stuff was rubbish and to but quality you had to pay more. He told me that a builder had been in, order 10 suits at prices between €800-€1000 per suit and had paid up frot, in cash!

A builder, it may have been the same one, I don't know, wanted to see a football match in Croke Park. He couldn't get a pair of tickets for adjoining seats so he paid €30k for a box with 10 seats. Off he went to the football match. A few weeks later there was a hurling match. He had no interest in hurling so he told his publican friend to give away the tickets to the regulars in the pub.

The worst think about the Celtic tiger era was the rudeness of the noveau riche. They were obnoxious.

PhilOssophy

clintondaly wrote: »

I found out what a Tracker Mortgage was and I still have it

Good win, as long as you bought a property that you like living in! I know several people who would love to get rid of it if they could get rid of the property associated with it without a massive loss, which is unlikely!

mikemac2 wrote: »

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 think this is still true to this day. You can always see "new money" a mile away, and the main reason being that the "old money" generally isn't flaunted around the place.

I Am Nobody

I immigrated to America right before the Celtic tiger.And the came home during the recession. What a fool I was,but ended doing ok in the end.

Eggs For Dinner

I was on decent wages. Didn't get a buy to let, Bulgarian holiday home, shares, new car etc. I fully funded my children through college and am now mortgage & debt free in my 50's with a modest pension

Granadino

Celtic Tiger passed me by. 43 ,no house.
I remember when the townies moved out to the countryside and started telling us how to cut trees and hedges etc . Laughable .

[Deleted User]

Granadino wrote: »

Celtic Tiger passed me by. 43 ,no house.
I remember when the townies moved out to the countryside and started telling us how to cut trees and hedges etc . Laughable .

The more prosaic of them published forgettable outdoor how to paperback novels

lisasimpson

Theres a few
Worked in an IFSC role black tie events all free for the night quite common for christmas party.
Knew of couple of construction studies teachers who gave up pernament jobs to go work full time on building sites...not just working on them during the summer holidays
Remember being on a night out in dublin and got talking to a guy that was in my bothers year..when he realised who i was.goes your brother was really broght in school whats he doing now. When i replied farmer is that all...well its was the agri/food sector that helped the country recover after the crash

completedit

Honestly, people's stupidity and ignorance would kill you. Groupthink and contagion are scary things. I'll never be on the side of the horde about anything-everything must be viewed through the alternative lens, when the crowd is saying something, rest assured, whatever is going against the grain is probably more on the money-Not always but sometimes. Abortion being a recent example where people are so blinded by their liberal bias they can't see the wood from the trees. Be pro abortion by all means but the amount of people who reduced it to a women's 'choice' and as a sort of anti catholic vote without any sort of openness to debate the bigger question about life, was just so sad and scary.

*Went off on one there hahah. I actually voted for it btw, but I hate sheep mentality. I'd say most people on message boards have a level of introspection, cynicism and self-awareness that the rest of society doesn't tend to.

Jinglejangle69

riclad wrote: »

Its not the same now. Banks will lend you 3.5 times your salary . and you need to save a 20 per cent deposit .the banks are regulated .
Our whole economy is not based on the building industry .

Thank god ay.

Although I'm worried at the political parties asking for this to be relaxed.

Motivator

I was chatting about this thread again today and was told of a local man who started a small window business in the early 2000s. Struck it big when he secured contracts for hundreds of new houses in various new estate projects across the city and county. Borrowed up to his nuts to expand the business and fall in with the big boys.

Cars, houses, a boat - you name it he had it. He bought 6 racehorses! SIX. I had to look it up online earlier to see. I can remember him from around when I was younger and I remember he was a flash Harry but it disappeared pretty quickly. When the construction company went bang overnight, there were two ghost estates left behind and all his contracts went down the pan.

Another story I was told was of a local engineering company that new they were going tits up. Got a couple of million euro up front a load of different companies for different huge projects around 2008 and then the main man of the company headed off into the sunset. I looked him up today, he is now running a company in Florida. If he ever sets foot back in Ireland I’d say he wouldn’t last 5 minutes. He put a couple of smaller companies out of business. I wonder how many people got burned this way during the early part of the recession.

cena

I wasn't loaded and still not loaded

lisasimpson

Another storty was a man sold the farm in the hight of the boom as none of the kids were interested in taking it over.Crash came and he ended up buying the farm back for a fraction of the price he sold it for. Was looking he didnt put all the money from original sale into bank shares like what many did. 1 son ended up moving home and has has stocked the farm on a hobby basis while in nice full time job nearby

weldoninhio

thecretinhop wrote: »

Forget this one.
was in college in dublin was at a talk by some clown. After wine had row with advertising and marketing clowns. at end about 12 bottles of wine 5 or 6 just opened.
Pissed, staff said take them.
like a trooper marched to home digs.
on bus next day got home.
Christmas 23rd de loads of tarquins and soairses.
All de way back hearing how expensive presents they had all bought.
i started sweating, i had all de wine in me bag.
got home checked corks bout a millimeter on a good few from coming off....

Can anyone translate this?

[Deleted User]

weldoninhio wrote: »

Can anyone translate this?

I think he's saying...
he went to an event with a lot of big talkers and there was a load of very fancy wine. So much so that half the bottles had barely been opened or touched. So the staff told him to just take the barely-opened bottles home.
he brought a ton of the bottles on the bus home with him for christmas, listening to other passengers talking about how expensive their presents were while he was there with a rake of very expensive wine in the bags. he was either nervous because it was so expensive or because it might leak all over the aforementioned very expensive presents.
then he got home off the bus and the bottles had been very close to re-opening and leaking and wasting the good stuff.

that's my best guess

FixdePitchmark

bluewolf wrote: »

I think he's saying...
he went to an event with a lot of big talkers and there was a load of very fancy wine. So much so that half the bottles had barely been opened or touched. So the staff told him to just take the barely-opened bottles home.
he brought a ton of the bottles on the bus home with him for christmas, listening to other passengers talking about how expensive their presents were while he was there with a rake of very expensive wine in the bags. he was either nervous because it was so expensive or because it might leak.
then he got home off the bus and the bottles had been very close to re-opening and leaking and wasting the good stuff.

that's my best guess

And he never stopped drinking wine from that day till now....................:D

[Deleted User]

^^ Bluewolf you should write these interpretative publications that are published for James Joyce and wb yeats. The Americans need them and suck them up.

[Deleted User]

Reminds me very vaguely of the English Junior Cert story
"The Dogs in the Great Glen" for some reason

JimmyVik

Two other funny stories I thought of today.

First one is something ive heard from a few people but dont think its true but its funny.
About a guy who saw the property crash coming and sold his house and his investment properties.
He put the profits in BOI shares so he would be safe for when the recession came.

This second one happened to me. While I was still in school I went down to the site my dad worked on to ask him for money.
Walking around the site looking for him I walked into a house that looked like it was being painted. He wasnt in it but as i was walking out the foreman walks in and says to me that i making good progree. If I got the last room finished today and onto the next house he would give me a bonus. He then handed me 50 quid and walked off. Now I was in school and didnt work there. But as soon as he disappeared around the corner, off I went home with my 50 quid.