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Child Item

The good old days.....

Rusheseverywhere

Not old enough to remember the 70s and 80s but talking to lads 50 years ago you could sell 8/10 bullocks and buy a new tractor. A weanling sold would buy 8 tonnes of meal. Looking at old mart dockets we were buying in suck calves in 1986 (All Ch) to double suck at around £300 that is nearly €400 37 years ago!!

Anyone here remember those days as farming must been lucrative then.

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Lime Tree Farm

That reminds me of my first rust bucket. The mats were thrown out that summer to dry out the floor. I picking up my sister from work in a summer down pour. When I drove through a flood, the water sprayed up through a hole in the floor onto the back seat, hitting one of the three young lads we had given a lift to in the face. I looked back to see the fellow in the middle with water dripping off his glasses and down his face. It happened so fast and unexpectedly, I nearly crashed laughing so much.

notthereyet

They were for some,but God help you if you were an unmarried mother or a gay man or woman living in rural Ireland in the 60s 70s and 80s you had to disappear very quickly,

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121281226#Comment_121281226

True. And if you were an unmarried mother, often your own people threw you into what was effectively a prison run by religious.

Lime Tree Farm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121281226#Comment_121281226

That attitude wasn't confined to rural Ireland only - it was global and still is in some Countries.

older by the day

Impossible to make comparisons with the 80s. Interest rates were 20percent. So very few big farmers buying land and building massive house's . Cubicle houses with cavity blocks and scrape it in to a open slurry pit. Feeding animals against the pit face.

The Irish were way more spareing. Nothing was wasted. Drank the milk straight from the tank. Killed your own pig/heifer. Grew your veg. Things were fixed a few times before being replaced.

We are all too soft now.

kollegeknight

Certain things were better. Looking now as a dad and a teacher. School Bullying ended at the school gate- now it’s on phones.

the worst secret was the fat fella with a beard. A friends 10yo daughter was asking about a 69 because a fifth class lad was talking about it.

farming wise, growing mass quantities of spuds for the pigs was hardship as we were the machines.

”the captain” used come around killing them.

milked cows, walked 2km across fields to clean sheds and feed cattle. went to school.

slatted house came when I was 16 so no more walking to small sheds.

trammed hay because the balers kept breaking down and rain was always around the corner.

we saved 20-30 trailers of turf a year for sale and killed turkeys for the Christmas market.

all unmercifully hard work but farming is lonelier now.

it might me be but I find a lot of things a process now rather than a way of life,

Cattlepen

This is the most accurate post here to my memory

Rusheseverywhere

Just came across 1971 newspaper article Ballyclare mart report £192 for bw heifer running with Freisan bull, £146 and £141 for Bw bulocks £210 for spring HE heifer and £86 and £82 for heifer and bull respectively SI calves. Springing dairy cows 250 to £300

Cattle prices definitely were alot higher in real terms 50 years ago.

Same paper £1971 Landrover defender new with extras £1100, no way 7 to 8 BW bullocks get a new jeep today. Loads of 5 year old cars 250 to 300. Hilllman Super Imp 300 pounds and an Imp 220.

FintanMcluskey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121288250#Comment_121288250

Cattle prices definitely were alot higher in real terms 50 years ago.

Surely CAP or subsidised food production would have some effect on cattle prices over the past 50 years?

patsy_mccabe

When a country is poor, then those involved in producing for export, ie farmers, are always going to be the richest in society.

Dickie10

does anyone foresee another agri golden age in ireland in coming decade? if we get wetter weather as a new normal you would imagine small farms in west and north west will be unviable. also maybe were in a 1912 era before next world war.

queueeye

I spoke to a man a few years back who grew grain in the 70's.

In 1974 he got 125 pounds a tonne, fertilizer was a pound or two a bag. He also taught and was paid 125 a month for teaching at an ag college.

We got 200 euro for feed barley this year. How much do teachers make per month now?!!!!

A quick anecdote about the value of agricultural produce and it's purchasing power over the last century or so:

I know it's going back in time but a local farm of 100 acres or so, with a decent 2 storey house which still stands today was bought in 1919 (just after WW1 when beef was very scarce) with the proceeds of 50 fat heifers.

Fast forward to the mid seventies, a local man I know built his 4 bed bungalow from the proceeds of a truck load of cattle which was 13 grand or so he told me.

What would 40 cattle do for you now, would it get you an kitchen extension?

orm0nd

local 4 bed quality bungalow build early 70's fully complete for 4400, builder's family are still in business so says something about their reputation

late 70's we built similar but slightly smaller scale for a bit over 7k BUT I supplied all the timber for the roof (seasoned douglas fir which thankfully my ancestors had good mind to plant) & I had felled a couple of years previous , the chippies were complaining it was difficult to drive nails in ...and my self and a mate also done all the plumbing, .. sale of some excess timber bought most of the plumbing supplies

kerryjack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318363#Comment_121318363

Ya remember a time when oldest sister got married and they moved in to New bungalow and there was concrete floors and and seats from an old Ford cortina in sitting room for a while things were that bad but they were happy and they got there, that was back in the early 80s

893bet

I bought a second hand caravan. Last year. 15k or so.

Old fella said it was very dear. His metric…..neighbour built a house before for 6k on the 70s😀😀

Wildsurfer

Why was 99% of the farming community driving clapped out tractors and cars back in the good old days if a few cattle would have bought new ones!

emaherx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121323391#Comment_121323391

Because most were farming smaller acres with less cattle and more people dependent on the farm income.

It's not like these few cattle were expendable income to most. Definitely a case of rose tinted glasses for many, it may have been simpler times but definitely not easier.

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121323129#Comment_121323129

Myself and herself had garden furniture in the kitchen when we moved in together first. That was in 2008.

Food tasted the same as far as I remember 😀

minerleague

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121323391#Comment_121323391

A lot of them grew up back when money was tight (1920s - 1960s ) and spending on comfort didn't come into mind! Interest rates for deposits were good so money left in bank for rainy day. Social welfare wasn't as generous either so money saved rather than spent for later life.

Loyal Lady

Parents were/are great farmers and rarely talked about money worries when we were younger but I remember around this time my Mum would mention having to budget because of smaller milk cheque.

Tonynewholland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121323129#Comment_121323129

That was the way it was done back then, finish off a room as you had the money. There's nothing spared in new houses nowadays and people then give out about the cost of a house. Some plumbing systems going in nowadays are crazy for a domestic house and costing serious money. I wouldn't like to be paying the maintenance of some of them.

lmk123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121324441#Comment_121324441

You’re 100% right, a friend of mine was giving out recently because the bank wouldn’t give him enough money so he could build a big garage and do a tarmacadam driveway along with his 3500 ft2 house, when I tried to tell him that he could just finish some rooms and do the shed and driveway over the next 10 years his arguement was “you wouldn’t buy a car and then start putting in the engine and gearbox over a few years”, I said you wouldn’t but you’d just buy a car you can afford, might as well hop my head off a wall as talk to him, there’s something desperately wrong with some people’s mentality and I hate to say a lot of them are my age

Tonynewholland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121324628#Comment_121324628

The banks aren't helping either,they want a house finished completely now as well

anthony500_1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121324989#Comment_121324989

They want a kitchen fitted and a working toilet. They don't want all's the bells and whistles that go with a new house for the final draw down.

There thinking is if you default on the loan they have a house they can sell as finished and not just a half built house that technically you could not move straight into.

lmk123

Yeah, my brother recently got sign off with a second hand kitchen he got for free, no doors hung except WC, No wardrobes, fairly basic but liveable, as long as the house is valued for more than you owe on it that’s all that mattered, anyway back to the topic of this I definitely think we have it better today than previous generations, if people got off their arse instead of feeling like victims it would be a help, people had it much harder years ago

notthereyet

Ya we have more money and we have more bills, Jesus its handy get rid of money now days, went in to hardware there yesterday 2 4x2 16 foot timbers 2 bags of cement 52 euro I nearly got a heart attack. I had 50 cash I was going to leave them there but I pulled out the card and saved my blushes.

kevthegaff

People putting in 40k fitted kitchens and there won't be much cooking in them...

Tonynewholland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121325114#Comment_121325114

I know a lad who wanted to leave upstairs unfinished and just live down stairs, bank said no but he couldn't borrow the amount needed to complete all the house. So parents had to help him.

kollegeknight

I didn’t have to do upstairs on my house- did the underfloor heating and concrete slab though.

got block walls put up two years ago and hoping to do first fix electricity and slabbing next year.

my house is 1500 sq ft downstairs, was valued at €160k off plans about 6 years ago and built in a year for €206k ish to a high which spec. - air to water- all tiled floors- decent kitchen, triple glazed windows, coving.

then auctioneer wanted to value it at €250k. Ridiculous. Nobody would buy where I built unless it was priced right.

insurance is saying we wouldn’t build it for €300k now.

my brother was refused a mortgage because he wouldn’t tarmac the drive. I advised him to keep looking til he found a bank that would oblige. He did.

[Deleted User]

So by the sounds of it livestock farming hasn’t paid for most in nearly 50-60 for the men & women doing the hard work.

Whats the definition of madness, doing the same thing over & over & expecting different results!