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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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pgj2015

Deleted User wrote: »

Part 8 housing being built near me and some of the curtain twitchers have revived the residents association to try and block it, convincing everyone that every scumbag in the area will be landing on their doorstep soon.

Turns out they are one and two bedroom units for elderly people occupying bigger council houses that are more suitable for families. And yet they are still out with their pitchforks.

what if the old people die, then they get replaced by Anto and his mates the local drug dealers and general troublemakers.

[Deleted User]

pgj2015 wrote: »

what if the old people die, then they get replaced by Anto and his mates the local drug dealers and general troublemakers.

All the old people die out!
Never, they're a renewable resource, every year younger people turn into old people.

Feisar

juneg wrote: »

Ya. Got more expensive

No I meant the product lines.

Kevhog1988

dresden8 wrote: »

NAMA paid the developers 200k a year for their "expertise".

even this lad https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/it-costs-16000-a-month-to-run-my-home-says-tearful-poll-ally-of-cowen-26523606.html

Glebee

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

even this lad https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/it-costs-16000-a-month-to-run-my-home-says-tearful-poll-ally-of-cowen-26523606.html

Ahh, the good old days. The former posh and becks of Edenderry..

[Deleted User]

talla10 wrote: »

I remember when lots of people wouldn't shop in Lidl or Aldi those shops were for the peasants.

My Dad has a great story where he ran out of frozen veg and asked the neighbour if she could lend him a bag. She opened the freezer and he could see two bags of frozen veg both from Aldi.

She closed the freezer and said Sorry i'm all out. My Dad thought she was joking so he laughed but she was serious. He said I can see two bags in there from Aldi.

Don't be ridiculous I don't shop in Aldi!

It's still like that in other countries. If you go to Germany or France, Lidl is where you shop if you're absolutely stoney broke. The quality is rubbish, the stores are often a kip. They don't do any of that 'locally produced' meat and suchlike, in the way they do here. Whoever is running Lidl's Irish operations has done a really stellar job.

Kevhog1988

[/LIST]

Glebee wrote: »

Ahh, the good old days. The former posh and becks of Edenderry..

I used to have a part time job where he used to bring the car in to be cleaned... Never struck me as terribly intelligent.

Kevhog1988

I grew up close to edenderry which was a mental town during the boom years. Some of the stuff i saw:

Local girl getting a brand new car for her 17th bday when we were still in school.
Nobody ever brought lunch to secondary school, everybody went down town for rolls etc.
Some ppl wouldnt shop in Lidl, others fought in the aisles the day some specials were released.
5/6 bookies in the town all constantly flat out.
Pubs rammed from Thursday to Monday.
Houses being absolutely thrown up and local people buying them knowing full well they were ****e.
A massive hotel being proposed for the town (Who the hell wants to stay in the midlands).
Lads leaving school to become bricklayers/plasterers and within weeks were driving 8/9k cars with probably 4k insurance.
Lineups of performance jap cars in the square every night that would rival any car show of the time.

completedit

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

It's still like that in other countries. If you go to Germany or France, Lidl is where you shop if you're absolutely stoney broke. The quality is rubbish, the stores are often a kip. They don't do any of that 'locally produced' meat and suchlike, in the way they do here. Whoever is running Lidl's Irish operations has done a really stellar job.

Yeah, same as in Czech Republic too. Just for students really. And the stores resemble more what the ones in Ireland used to. They still have the bakery though and fruit section isn't the worst, but from what I saw, the buildings are all like the old style too.

pgj2015

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

even this lad https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/it-costs-16000-a-month-to-run-my-home-says-tearful-poll-ally-of-cowen-26523606.html

why didn't he just turn his house into a hotel or fancy b&b to make money? im sure he didn't need the 9 bedrooms. did he keep the house? i wonder what he is at these days.

cms88

pgj2015 wrote: »

why didn't he just turn his house into a hotel or fancy b&b to make money? im sure he didn't need the 9 bedrooms. did he keep the house? i wonder what he is at these days.

He should have ran the gas off the electricity and the electricity off the gas and saved two hundred pounds a year,

Kevhog1988

pgj2015 wrote: »

why didn't he just turn his house into a hotel or fancy b&b to make money? im sure he didn't need the 9 bedrooms. did he keep the house? i wonder what he is at these days.

Works for Nama last i heard.

retalivity

pgj2015 wrote: »

why didn't he just turn his house into a hotel or fancy b&b to make money? im sure he didn't need the 9 bedrooms. did he keep the house? i wonder what he is at these days.

A quick google of his name throws up some interesting stories, nothing from the last 5 years though

qm1bv4p8i92aoj

retalivity wrote: »

A quick google of his name throws up some interesting stories, nothing from the last 5 years though

That's putting it mildly. Swindling a local business man out of €346,000 and then being shot at outside his house while in his car with his father and two kids with a load of money in the boot. Like something out of a gangster movie.

seenn00J

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

It's still like that in other countries. If you go to Germany or France, Lidl is where you shop if you're absolutely stoney broke. The quality is rubbish, the stores are often a kip. They don't do any of that 'locally produced' meat and suchlike, in the way they do here. Whoever is running Lidl's Irish operations has done a really stellar job.

That would be JP scally. Became CEO when he was only 35 - 36 I believe. I've heard radio interviews with him, seems like a smart guy.

padjocollins

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

It's still like that in other countries. If you go to Germany or France, Lidl is where you shop if you're absolutely stoney broke. The quality is rubbish, the stores are often a kip. They don't do any of that 'locally produced' meat and suchlike, in the way they do here. Whoever is running Lidl's Irish operations has done a really stellar job.

living in germany and shop in Aldi all the time. food is cheap and quality is high. If you want to go dirt cheap and low quality, penny is the place to shop here. I get mountain cheese and sushi in Aldi among other stuff. lot cheaper than aldi ireland

BattleCorp

seenn00J wrote: »

That would be JP scally. Became CEO when he was only 35 - 36 I believe. I've heard radio interviews with him, seems like a smart guy.

I've worked with him. He is a smart guy, and an unbelievably hard worker. You have to be to succeed with Lidl.

He was in charge of Lidl in Northern Ireland the last I'd heard of him.

Muahahaha

AFAIK Scally is CEO for both Lidl Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Even more impressive is Giles Hurley who established Aldis first stores in Donegal 20 years ago and is now CEO of the entire UK and Ireland operation, hes over just under 900 supermarkets in the UK and 140 here.

I see sheep wrote: »

The developers etc. who 'lost everything' had greased enough wheels (usually) to be looked after to a certain extent.

All depended on how much they owed. The threshold for developers to get into NAMA was to owe the banks a minimum of 5 million. That meant all the small time property developers went bankrupt but those owing more were rescued. I remember one bust developer owed 4.9m and was trying to borrow another 100k so he could get into NAMA but the bank wouldnt lend it. Then other developers had borrowed way more than 5m but had done so from Ulster Bank so they couldnt get into NAMA as it was only for borrowers from Irish bank and UB was owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Kevhog1988

padjocollins wrote: »

living in germany and shop in Aldi all the time. food is cheap and quality is high. If you want to go dirt cheap and low quality, penny is the place to shop here. I get mountain cheese and sushi in Aldi among other stuff. lot cheaper than aldi ireland

What part are you in?. I was there for a foreign exchange in school and loved the place

PhilOssophy

padjocollins wrote: »

living in germany and shop in Aldi all the time. food is cheap and quality is high. If you want to go dirt cheap and low quality, penny is the place to shop here. I get mountain cheese and sushi in Aldi among other stuff. lot cheaper than aldi ireland

Yeah, funnily I lived in Germany and that was my experience. Lidl and Aldi (Sud in my view) were extremely popular. The shops were kept to a very similar standard to the Irish stores. The fruit/veg and breads, etc were impeccably presented in the ones I was using.
I guess it depends where exactly but Germans of all people don't do shopping snobbery!

ChikiChiki

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

Works for Nama last i heard.

Why do we reward these chancers.

Turfcutter

Fantastic topic. It should be put in a time capsule for future centuries!

I’m seeing a trend of 2 very distinct personas:
- Young lad out of school, not very academic but absolutely lording it on fat frogs, coke and BMWs. I used to queue with these for the morning breakfast roll. Their sweat would be highly flammable and they’d be clutching a Lucozade sport bottle like it was a lifesaving potion.
- Obnoxious 50 something y/o golf club tosser in a lemon coloured jumper, swilling champagne, barking the odds at waiting staff but firing out the crispy notes to keep them square.

Tons of people are saying this was a time of greed, however you can’t deny the generosity of Irish people either. We absolutely threw the money around in this era.
As Charlie McCreevy put it “When I have it, I spend it”. Unfortunately, it was the exchequer returns he was talking about.

You’d notice abroad how we differ from our fellow Europeans. Put a busker or a beggar in a restaurant or bar at a tourist destination. The Germans, French etc will shuffle uncomfortably and pretend to ignore. If there are Irish people they will root out some change.

the beer revolu

Turfcutter wrote: »

The Germans, French etc will shuffle uncomfortably and pretend to ignore. If there are Irish people they will root out some change.

And then, probably, complain about all the beggars!

mikemac2

Belfast sinks were a thing. I don't what the history or connection to Belfast is but they were popular

Check out the depth, my poor hunched back is aching at just the sight of it.

partyguinness

Turfcutter wrote: »

You’d notice abroad how we differ from our fellow Europeans. Put a busker or a beggar in a restaurant or bar at a tourist destination. The Germans, French etc will shuffle uncomfortably and pretend to ignore. If there are Irish people they will root out some change.

I must be German or French. I have never in my life given money to a busker and have absolutely no intention of starting either.

Marty Xavier

mikemac2 wrote: »

Belfast sinks were a thing. I don't what the history or connection to Belfast is but they were popular

Check out the depth, my poor hunched back is aching at just the sight of it.

My grandmother had a Belfast sink, they came back in vogue big style and they work stylistically in a cottage setting, maybe not so much in a €40k modern kitchen.

I Am Nobody

partyguinness wrote: »

I must be German or French. I have never in my life given money to a busker and have absolutely no intention of starting either.

I've given a few bob to the old fellas with their accordions in a side alley.Whether they spend it on drink or what have you.None of my business but I also know how that feels.If that makes me a muppet so be it.

But the young fellas with the guitars screeching out lyrics,feck them.

StupidLikeAFox

I Am Nobody wrote: »

I've given a few bob to the old fellas with their accordions in a side alley.Whether they spend it on drink or what have you.None of my business but I also know how that feels.If that makes me a muppet so be it.
.

In 2007 I worked in the central bank in Dublin and one day "James Joyce" walked in the door - not the real one of course but one of the "statue" lads that stands on Grafton street. He wanted to know if we would take in some coins as he heard we had a coin changer. Well we had a coin changer but it was for old punt coins so we were of no help to him. Directed him to a machine in the spar around the corner but his words were "I've made over 900€ today and those machines take 9%, I'll just go home and count it". I'd say the poor lad in the alley that you are helping out might be on a decent wedge!

PTH2009

What were pubs like mid week back these days ??

Turned pub age 2007/2008 so it of been the end of the celtic tiger

NSAman

PTH2009 wrote: »

What were pubs like mid week back these days ??

Turned pub age 2007/2008 so it of been the end of the celtic tiger

Coke everywhere.

Was nice when a pint was produced and paid for. Horseshoe Bar was always packed. Superbars in Dublin.

Tragically, most of the older fun places were done up and ruined the atmosphere and character of the place. I know my own local was destroyed in the name of "progress" thing is... it did much better business before the "upgrade", simply because people liked the place, it was comfortable, fun, everyone knew one another and there was no pretense.. I mean jaysus... a pint and a bag of crisps was about the height of the food offering. Afterwards, it was Beef Bourgiugnon and wine???? People lost the run of themselves.

Lasted about 2 months with the old regulars and a new crowd moved in... younger and spent less... stupid mistake in my opinion.