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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)

Mod warning: Any further discussion of Financial institutions in depth will result in a thread ban. Do not derail this thread with that form of discussion.

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tjhook

At the weekend - walking home for miles because there wasn't a hope in hell of a taxi being available. The alternative was hours of queuing at a taxi rank with drunk people who were getting more and more pissed off / aggressive.

Ush1

tjhook wrote: »

At the weekend - walking home for miles because there wasn't a hope in hell of a taxi being available. The alternative was hours of queuing at a taxi rank with drunk people who were getting more and more pissed off / aggressive.

I can remember walking home from town to Tallaght a few times during the summer. Would be bright out by the time I got in, a good two hour stroll.

2lazytogetup

tjhook wrote: »

At the weekend - walking home for miles because there wasn't a hope in hell of a taxi being available. The alternative was hours of queuing at a taxi rank with drunk people who were getting more and more pissed off / aggressive.

during CT, having money for a taxi and only reason is because no taxis available

ChikiChiki

weldoninhio wrote: »

How do you lose money in property in Detroit? Gaffs cost a few grand.

Never underestimate the hopelessness of Detroit. US economy could be on the up and the property in that place would still be on the way down. Didn't the federal Government refuse to bail out the city to the tune of 20bn whilst spending trillions on arms at the same time. Place went into further decline.

[Deleted User]

WAW wrote: »

I presume he means that some of the corks on his his wine bottles had leaked in the luggage hold of the bus which was full of expensive presents bought by the Tarquin and Saoirse types. So presents got damaged. Am I right?

I think he said they were very close to leaking but just about hadn't
Maybe!

Zebra3

tjhook wrote: »

At the weekend - walking home for miles because there wasn't a hope in hell of a taxi being available. The alternative was hours of queuing at a taxi rank with drunk people who were getting more and more pissed off / aggressive.

The Fianna Fáil protected cartel.

Royale with Cheese

This thread is a bit of an eye opener, I graduated with an Arts degree in 2007 so missed out on all of this.

I faffed around for a year doing temp work, one of those jobs was in early 2008 doing back office work for a UK Life and Pensions company. Every day we'd print off a load of letters to be sent to customers telling them we'd lost all their money, and they now needed to reduce the sum assured on their policy significantly or to roll the dice and basically predict the date of their own death. You could keep you original sum assured but if you lived a day past 81 years and 267 days (this was different for each customer) then you'd get nothing. In the afternoon I'd then start going through all the complaints we'd received from the previous few days worth of letters we'd sent out.

I work in IT now earning what I'd consider reasonably good money, I wouldn't dream of doing most of the things discussed on this thread. I wonder if I'd have been any different if I was a little older and working full time during the boom. I'd like to think not, I hate the idea of buying anything on credit, but the amount of stories on this thread suggests people were wired a little differently back then.

Sheep_shear

Stories from the Celtic Tiger Years

I remember getting the Galway to Dublin bus a lot during 2005. No motorway then, used to take 4 to 5 hours if you were lucky. Bus driver would do at least break on the way to let everyone stretch their legs and usually have a smoke.

At least we got some decent infrastructure out of those years.

Rodney Bathgate

weldoninhio wrote: »

How do you lose money in property in Detroit? Gaffs cost a few grand.

This might explain it:

“The reason the city of Detroit is selling homes for $1 is to generate tax revenue. According to Elsa, even though the buyer only pays one dollar for a house in Detroit, the taxes are applied as if the home is still worth $60,000. Someone might buy a house in Detroit for a dollar and then end up paying $2,000 to $3,000 a year in taxes on the property.”

hoodie6029

Rodney Bathgate wrote: »

This might explain it:

“The reason the city of Detroit is selling homes for $1 is to generate tax revenue. According to Elsa, even though the buyer only pays one dollar for a house in Detroit, the taxes are applied as if the home is still worth $60,000. Someone might buy a house in Detroit for a dollar and then end up paying $2,000 to $3,000 a year in taxes on the property.”

Going OT now but this is the city where the former mayor is serving 28 years for running the Mayor's office as a criminal enterprise so that doesn't surprise me

Ashleigh1986

During the Celtic tiger days the younger brother went into a bank .
Teller says to him ... " you have been ok'd for a €20,000 loan "
Brother said ... " this isn't even my bank I'm just lodging money into landlords account "
Teller says " take it you can buy a car "
Brother... " I can't drive ".
They were literally throwing money at you !!!
Flip side of that I've gone tru 2 recessions the 80s and the recent one .
Both don't compare !
I remember getting butter vouchers with my dole payment in the 80s !!!
What this one will be like ?????

BattleCorp

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

I remember getting butter vouchers with my dole payment in the 80s !!!
What this one will be like ?????

I don't think anybody bought butter with their butter vouchers. I was a teen working in a shop and we used to just treat them like cash. Typically they were used as part payment for smokes.

Ashleigh1986

BattleCorp wrote: »

I don't think anybody bought butter with their butter vouchers. I was a teen working in a shop and we used to just treat them like cash. Typically they were used as part payment for smokes.

Shops selling single smokes !!!
Young WANs don't know what a real recession looks like !!!

Rodney Bathgate

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

I remember getting butter vouchers with my dole payment in the 80s !!!
What this one will be like ?????

More cheese this time maybe?

Mickiemcfist

2lazytogetup wrote: »

thanks for reminding me of that show. would love to watch an episode again but cant find them on youtube.

that show was gas. mcguire would show some shed for 400k outside summerhill and had this mad laugh when the prospective purchaser was in disbelief that was all he could afford.

i thought mcguire had the personality to go further in RTE. he had the charisma. i commented earlier in the thread about the rolling stones at slane felt to me the end of the tiger years. Well i saw mcguire at that concert with 3 stunning blonds. i was going to ask him to do the laugh, but thought he might hit me.

wonder what he is doing now apart from car insurance commercials.

I think he runs that insurance company, see him on Baggot st wearing awful shiny suits often enough.

SEPT 23 1989

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

During the Celtic tiger days the younger brother went into a bank .
Teller says to him ... " you have been ok'd for a €20,000 loan "
Brother said ... " this isn't even my bank I'm just lodging money into landlords account "
Teller says " take it you can buy a car "
Brother... " I can't drive ".
They were literally throwing money at you !!!
Flip side of that I've gone tru 2 recessions the 80s and the recent one .
Both don't compare !
I remember getting butter vouchers with my dole payment in the 80s !!!
What this one will be like ?????

did you not get a few tins of intervention beef with the butter vouchers?:D

jinkybhoy

Mickiemcfist wrote: »

I think he runs that insurance company, see him on Baggot st wearing awful shiny suits often enough.

yeah quotedevil - Saw a renewal from them yesterday with an admin fee of €250 for a car policy!!

gmisk

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

During the Celtic tiger days the younger brother went into a bank .
Teller says to him ... " you have been ok'd for a €20,000 loan "
Brother said ... " this isn't even my bank I'm just lodging money into landlords account "
Teller says " take it you can buy a car "
Brother... " I can't drive ".
They were literally throwing money at you !!!
Flip side of that I've gone tru 2 recessions the 80s and the recent one .
Both don't compare !
I remember getting butter vouchers with my dole payment in the 80s !!!
What this one will be like ?????

Hmmm vouchers for scramblers? Or hot tubs?

Montage of Feck

Nigel Fairservice wrote: »

He was advising Dolores McNamara, the €100 million+ Euromillions winner from Limerick, lost her a load of money on property in Detroit.

The fool, should have bought a holiday home in Chechnya.

El Gato De Negocios

2lazytogetup wrote: »

thanks for reminding me of that show. would love to watch an episode again but cant find them on youtube.

that show was gas. mcguire would show some shed for 400k outside summerhill and had this mad laugh when the prospective purchaser was in disbelief that was all he could afford.

i thought mcguire had the personality to go further in RTE. he had the charisma. i commented earlier in the thread about the rolling stones at slane felt to me the end of the tiger years. Well i saw mcguire at that concert with 3 stunning blonds. i was going to ask him to do the laugh, but thought he might hit me.

wonder what he is doing now apart from car insurance commercials.

He owns and is MD of Quote Devil, the insurer he does the ads for. He also owns Dax restaurant and other properties, he's a smart guy. Have met him a few times through work, he's actually quite sound, certainly not what I'd expected.

afatbollix

Does anyone remember how much a fat frog was?

1 bottle orange Bacardi Breezer
1 bottle WKD blue
1 bottle Smirnoff Ice

It must of cost over e20 for one of them and as it was so full of sugar they were drinking tons of them.

RocketRaccoon

afatbollix wrote: »

Does anyone remember how much a fat frog was?

1 bottle orange Bacardi Breezer
1 bottle WKD blue
1 bottle Smirnoff Ice

It must of cost over e20 for one of them and as it was so full of sugar they were drinking tons of them.

€4.50 for each bottle in my local back then so €13.50 for 2 pints. We used to drink obscene amounts of the ****e on nights out.

Mister Vain

You'd imagine a fat bollix would know the price of a fat frog. :pac:

Zebra3

afatbollix wrote: »

Does anyone remember how much a fat frog was?

1 bottle orange Bacardi Breezer
1 bottle WKD blue
1 bottle Smirnoff Ice

It must of cost over e20 for one of them and as it was so full of sugar they were drinking tons of them.

Went through a phase of ordering a double vodka in a pint glass with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice as the mixer.

Fitz*

Zebra3 wrote: »

Went through a phase of ordering a double vodka in a pint glass with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice as the mixer.

You're not the only one!

[Deleted User]

RocketRaccoon wrote: »

€4.50 for each bottle in my local back then so €13.50 for 2 pints. We used to drink obscene amounts of the ****e on nights out.

And a brandy on top of each in case you don't get drunk

Montage of Feck

and baileys with the brandy.

KevRossi

an then we ran the gas off the electricity and the electricity off the gas.

talla10

I remember letting a cheque of €1,000 expire. I had 6 months to lodge it and I didn't. Found it a year later under my bed. I rang the bank and they sent out a new one so I didn't lose the money but think now of how I didn't miss a €1,000 at 20 years of age.

Sebastian Dangerfield

I had just left college at 21 and was working at a few bits and pieces cash in hand locally, while applying for 'proper' jobs in Dublin. I didnt claim the dole, there were no incomings going through my account at all. I still had my student overdraft of €1k, which was not only usually fully extended but over-extended by up to another 400, which seemed to be AIBs cutoff point. I had an old banger which Id saved up for, but 2k credit card debt which I had used to insure it. I think I also had a loan of 1 or 2k from the credit union, which I got by lodging just enough to allow me to borrow said amount the day I opened the account. Memory may be failing me, but I think I may have gotten the CU loan for living expenses to avoid claiming dole, which makes no sense to me now.

Anyway, one day I dropped my mother into hospital and while waiting, I took a walk around a car dealership. I left 45 mins later with finance on a €10k car. The car dealer got my local bank manager on the phone and he basically said to give him anything at all that would justify him signing off on the loan. I mentioned I had an interview coming up in the local Supervalu, that was good enough for him.

I moved to Dublin shortly after on a low starting salary, 19k I think. Frequently Id blow the guts of a months salary in the first weekend (plus rent and the car and other debt repayments), and Id just call the bank Monday morning and add a grand to the loan. It would literally be in my account within the hour. I repaid €344 a month for something like 7 years.

I finally got sense when the "another grand please" call was turned down for the first time. I used every penny I could gather to clear every debt I had within the year, and have taken care of my finances ever since. It was obviously all of my own doing, but I still wonder how I was ever allowed to get into that situation in the first place.