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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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thebronze14

I've noticed the Celtic tiger occurrence of football clubs raffling off houses for 100 quid a ticket is back

X6.430macman

jimmy180sx wrote:

Applegreen brought it. 6months later gone. Also huge hotel built across the road. All the steel was stood and contractor went wallop. Stood like that for 12yrs before it was bought and converted into a nursing home.

Remember when I was a young fella passing that and it seemed like it stood there unfinished for decades.. I remember getting a giggle out of the sign that said when it was due to open, think it was something like November 2005

X6.430macman

jimmy180sx wrote:

Applegreen brought it. 6months later gone. Also huge hotel built across the road. All the steel was stood and contractor went wallop. Stood like that for 12yrs before it was bought and converted into a nursing home.

Marty Xavier

thebronze14 wrote: »

I've noticed the Celtic tiger occurrence of football clubs raffling off houses for 100 quid a ticket is back

Yes back in the day the company I work for would have been quite good at putting a hand in their pocket for local clubs and good causes. When the recession hit it was remarkable to see the same people coming back looking for more. Even to this day people would begin a request by saying "ye always looked after us".
I have taken over this aspect of the business now and the criteria is basically if you are a good customer you get looked after.
I remember we were sponsoring an underage camogie county team and the following year maybe 2010, when basically staff were being cut and reduced hours they approached me again, I laid out our position and they challenged me saying that they had our name on their shirts and would be wearing them again that season (our deal was a 1 year deal).
So basically there wasn't another sponsor lined up and that was my fault.
Another fella from Fine Gael approached me in 2011 before the election looking to sell tickets to fund raise for the party, the previous guy (a blueshirt) did buy some before me taking the role, I said that we wouldn't be supporting any political party in future in the company, he countered by telling me when they got into power we would be looking for favours. We have never as far as I'm aware looked for a favour from anyone in politics! (His son became a TD. btw)

partyguinness

I was back home last year for a family birthday and we went to a hotel in a neighbouring market town.

Back in say 1998-2007 the town was heaving. Two nightclubs going at the weekend and the pubs packed. Good times.

Now it is just grim. No nightclubs and pubs closed all over the place. Just a splatter of take aways, Polish shops and bookies and closed down premises.

I was telling my brother who is nearly 20 years younger about the two nightclubs and all the thriving pubs. Also about our local would be rammed every weekend with people travelling from all around. Now the place is dead. New Years Eve would be rammed every year...now you are lucky to get 20 people standing around.

He just laughed at me and assumed I was pulling the piss.

The J Stands for Jay

partyguinness wrote: »

I have to admit I do not recall Jaeger Bombs during that period. I would associate Jaeger Bombs with the last 10 years rather than the 10 years before it. It was more vodka and redbulls...oh and Aftersock but I generally avoid shots.

Amazon photos decided today to remind me of a picture from 2005 featuring a bar with jaegerbombs lined up ready to go

BattleCorp

What was going to be built on the outskirts of Tullamore? There's a big metal frame with concrete floors poured and nothing else done just off one of the roundabouts. I'm guessing it was to be a hotel but it looks like it got kyboshed in the recession.

Was it to be a hotel?

seamie78

BattleCorp wrote: »

What was going to be built on the outskirts of Tullamore? There's a big metal frame with concrete floors poured and nothing else done just off one of the roundabouts. I'm guessing it was to be a hotel but it looks like it got kyboshed in the recession.

Was it to be a hotel?

always wondered that myself

X6.430macman

McGaggs wrote:

Amazon photos decided today to remind me of a picture from 2005 featuring a bar with jaegerbombs lined up ready to go

Jeepers you are well into tech if you had that crac back in 05

Glebee

BattleCorp wrote: »

What was going to be built on the outskirts of Tullamore? There's a big metal frame with concrete floors poured and nothing else done just off one of the roundabouts. I'm guessing it was to be a hotel but it looks like it got kyboshed in the recession.

Was it to be a hotel?

Private hospital / health care l I thought

KevRossi

Glebee wrote: »

Private hospital / health care l I thought

Yes, a Mater Private or Galway Clinic for the Midlands. Was being built by a FF county councillor to add to the cliche.

This is it here, it's only a small part of what was to be built. The midland regional hospital is in the background. They would have been linked up.

The odd thing about it is the planning around it. It was actually done very well for a Celtic Tiger project. Out of town site, near N-roads and a motorway, 5 mins away from the train station with a taxi. Plenty of housing of all kinds in the area to support the staff. It actually had a lot going for it.

The J Stands for Jay

X6.430macman wrote: »

Jeepers you are well into tech if you had that crac back in 05

I just backed up photos to it a few years back; I don't think Amazon photos was on the go back then. It just takes the date details from the exif data on the photos to do the memory notifications.

Muahahaha

KevRossi wrote: »

Yes, a Mater Private or Galway Clinic for the Midlands. Was being built by a FF county councillor to add to the cliche.

This is it here, it's only a small part of what was to be built. The midland regional hospital is in the background. They would have been linked up.

The odd thing about it is the planning around it. It was actually done very well for a Celtic Tiger project. Out of town site, near N-roads and a motorway, 5 mins away from the train station with a taxi. Plenty of housing of all kinds in the area to support the staff. It actually had a lot going for it.

jesus that looks grim.

Wasnt there also a massive new FAS centre built somewhere in Offaly during the Tiger and then never used when the recession hit. iirc Brian Cowen got it pushed through but there was shennaigans on the sale of the land by a FFer at inflated prices. Then the building cost something like 3 million and it turned out to be useless anyway because it was miles from the nearest town with no bus service and the FAS apprentices had no way of getting there to do courses. Anyone know the status of what happened it, does it still stand?

um7y1h83ge06nx

I raise you the Parkway Valley Shopping Centre in Limerick. Thankfully it's been or has recently been finally demolished. Always thought it would be good for a mad parkour area or as an Eastern European urban warzone for a film.

Google Maps Link

GN4_DAT_14203813.jpg--.jpg

Sebastian Dangerfield

Braylee Fat Kicker wrote: »

I raise you the Parkway Valley Shopping Centre in Limerick. Thankfully it's been or has recently been finally demolished.]

The Parkway was there long before the CT wasnt it? My mam used to bring me shopping there mid to late 90s.

partyguinness

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/work-starts-on-120m-shopping-centre-in-limerick-1.1205069

Ah...May '07. The Celtic Tiger had his toes over the cliff edge and was about to jump.

Sleepy

Great thread and brings back a lot of memories, many happy but most rather uncomfortable these days when I have the benefit of age and experience to know what I could have done with a lot of the money I pissed against the wall during the boom. I was lucky not to get burnt on property investments or the like but I certainly lived beyond my means during my college years and until the end of the boom. Part time jobs were easy to get in college and even graduating after the dot com crash, annual salary rises meant I was on decent enough money by the time I was about 24. Some of the highlights from my own celtic tiger excess would include wearing Hugo Boss clothing and a Louis Copeland suits when I was still a student, annual ski holidays, drinking 5/6 nights a week while in college and thinking nothing of dropping 500 on an average weekend on the town, missing a flight home from a stag-do in Munich (remember those?) and only being more put out at the 10 hour wait than having to shell out €400 odd for the next flight home... the absolute height of it though would have been on a rugby weekend away when we went to "rescue" one of the lads from a strip club at 11am and, on discovering their pints were the same price as the other pubs, decided we may as well stay there for the afternoon. We fell out of the place at about 3am after at least one trip to the nearest ATM each...

Glebee

Muahahaha wrote: »

jesus that looks grim.

Wasnt there also a massive new FAS centre built somewhere in Offaly during the Tiger and then never used when the recession hit. iirc Brian Cowen got it pushed through but there was shennaigans on the sale of the land by a FFer at inflated prices. Then the building cost something like 3 million and it turned out to be useless anyway because it was miles from the nearest town with no bus service and the FAS apprentices had no way of getting there to do courses. Anyone know the status of what happened it, does it still stand?

Never went ahead. FAS bought the site at a massively inflated price and then sold at a hugh loss... Great business stragety evident there...
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/massive-loss-as-fas-sells-birr-site-v8zmqwtdm2d

um7y1h83ge06nx

Sebastian Dangerfield wrote: »

The Parkway was there long before the CT wasnt it? My mam used to bring me shopping there mid to late 90s.

It was, the naming gets confusing. You're talking about the Parkway Shopping Centre which is still going strong. This was going to be down the road from it and called the Parkway Valley Shopping Centre.

And despite there being only a few hundred metres between those two there is a retail park located between them - the Parkway Retail Park which was built during the CT I think. The council couldn't get enough of retail property outside the city centre.

Sebastian Dangerfield

Sleepy wrote: »

The absolute height of it though would have been on a rugby weekend away when we went to "rescue" one of the lads from a strip club at 11am and, on discovering their pints were the same price as the other pubs, decided we may as well stay there for the afternoon. We fell out of the place at about 3am after at least one trip to the nearest ATM each...

The pricing thing enticed us as well. I think it was Angels in Dublin used charge 20 in and sold wine only at 30 a bottle (circa 2002). Then we found Valentinos which was free in and 5 euro a pint. We were in there so often they opened early for us one night, we werent planning to go in, just happened to be having a pint in the hotel upstairs and they recognised us.

Muahahaha

Glebee wrote: »

Never went ahead. FAS bought the site at a massively inflated price and then sold at a hugh loss... Great business stragety evident there...
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/massive-loss-as-fas-sells-birr-site-v8zmqwtdm2d

Thats the one, had thought it got built but obviously not. Still a great waste of taxpayers money though.

Massive loss as Fas sells Birr site
Colin Coyle
Sunday June 30 2013, 1.01am BST, The Sunday Times

A FIVE-ACRE site in Birr, Co Offaly bought by Fas for €1.5m in 2004 is now being sold for just €150,000.
Three years ago the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) criticised the purchase price, noting that the training agency’s own consultants had estimated the site was worth only €700,000 when they bought it.

Fas bought the 5.6 acres as a site for a new national headquarters, which were moving out of Dublin as part of Charlie McCreevy’s decentralisation scheme.
The €1.5m purchase was described in 2010 as “fairly disturbing” by Bernard Allen, then chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (Pac).

PhilOssophy

Sebastian Dangerfield wrote: »

The pricing thing enticed us as well. I think it was Angels in Dublin used charge 20 in and sold wine only at 30 a bottle (circa 2002). Then we found Valentinos which was free in and 5 euro a pint. We were in there so often they opened early for us one night, we werent planning to go in, just happened to be having a pint in the hotel upstairs and they recognised us.

Rule #1 of business, know your customer!

beertons

Don't think I ever paid into Angel's.

Sebastian Dangerfield

beertons wrote: »

Don't think I ever paid into Angel's.

Is Angels the one on Dame St? It was that one, whatever it's called. I remember it well, night of my 19th birthday throwing 20s at strippers and had to walk back to Rathmines in torrential rain cos Id no money for a taxi.

beertons

Sebastian Dangerfield wrote: »

Is Angels the one on Dame St? It was that one, whatever it's called. I remember it well, night of my 19th birthday throwing 20s at strippers and had to walk back to Rathmines in torrential rain cos Id no money for a taxi.

I think so. Met a guy thumbing a lift, whilst heading out to my parents house one new years day. Gave him a lift and we started chatting. He was on the door of Angel's and his car had been clamped. The only money he had on him was the wage for the nights work and that wouldn't cover the clamp removal. Said he'd pick it up the following night. This was way before they started compounding the clamped cars, maybe 2001. I dropped him to his door as he had walked a good few miles after getting a bus to Naas. Been on the guest list ever since, well maybe not in the last 10 years, just told me to mention his name on the door. Happy days.

Marty Xavier

Jesus just remember something I did. Was stupid drunk on hols in Sligo, decided to vandalise a car and broke off a windscreen wiper (because I am a bad drunk) woke up in a panic ran back to the car the next morning left a note and €200 in it apologising, I assume I may have overpaid here?
( I was sure that the carpark was under CCTV, it probably wasn't)

Sebastian Dangerfield

Marty Xavier wrote: »

Jesus just remember something I did. Was stupid drunk on hols in Sligo, decided to vandalise a car and broke off a windscreen wiper (because I am a bad drunk) woke up in a panic ran back to the car the next morning left a note and €200 in it apologising, I assume I may have overpaid here?
( I was sure that the carpark was under CCTV, it probably wasn't)

I'm sure the next passer-by who took the €200 was delighted :-)

Dr Turk Turkelton

Sebastian Dangerfield wrote: »

I'm sure the next passer-by who took the €200 was delighted :-)

You kidding? Back in the tiger I wouldn't have stretched me arm out for a measly 200.

Ush1

Sebastian Dangerfield wrote: »

Is Angels the one on Dame St? It was that one, whatever it's called. I remember it well, night of my 19th birthday throwing 20s at strippers and had to walk back to Rathmines in torrential rain cos Id no money for a taxi.

Pretty sure that was Lapellos.......er, apparently.:o

Marty Xavier

Sebastian Dangerfield wrote: »

I'm sure the next passer-by who took the €200 was delighted :-)

Yes it was ridiculous in hindsight.