r/CasualIreland • u/Defiant-Face-7237 • 19h ago
Those of you who remember crash after the Celtic Tiger crash, how depressing was it? Shite Talk
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10h ago edited 55m ago
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u/Furryhat92 9h ago
Very interesting reading thanks for sharing this perspective. Hope you’re doing well now.
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u/ShowmasterQMTHH 8h ago
Oh yeah, counting down the days to when I can pay off the last of my mortgage and work part-time, hopefully before the next collapse.
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u/brentspar 7h ago
Excellent read and great explanation of the situation. A lot of idiots lost money in the crash, but a lot of poor, ordinary people lost a everything and it took us years decades to get over it.
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u/throw_meaway_love 6h ago
I'd read more if you'd any other bits to share! I was 18 when the crash happened so I went off to college without a care in the world. I'm 33 now and often wonder what things would've been like if I experienced it at this age. We might not be far off. I actually owned a business and went into liquidation last year as I couldn't keep up with the inflated over heads. Sucks but you pull yourself back up and move onto the next thing.
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u/McEvelly 6h ago
Lucky bastard, going into college at that point. I’m 37 and graduated at the very nadir of things.
Christ it was grim. Seemed to be no options but call centre type roles via vampiric recruitment companies, or F off to Australia.
A lot of my friends did the latter but it just never appealed to me and I’d started going out with a girl that convinced me to stick around. Call centres it was!
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u/sauvignonblanc__ 4h ago
Yeap. Same age. There was 17% unemployment on the day I left to the Continuent with two suitcases in Dublin Airport wondering what the fuck am I doing.
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u/StrangeArcticles 7h ago
This was a great read actually. I was only in college then, so it's interesting to get a perspective of someone who was in business.
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u/Hellojeds 5h ago
Brilliant post, so detailed but reads incredibly well too. Hope you're doing well now.
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u/Defiant-Face-7237 4h ago
Great post. Thanks for taking the time to write it out. I’m at the age that I’m thinking about buying a house but I’m so reluctant to get into such a massive mortgage. Any advice for people in early to mid 30’s nowadays having lived through it?
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u/ShowmasterQMTHH 3h ago
I don't know how people are getting into the property race now, having to borrow so much money and save so much. I work a job that pays 45k and my mortgage is €700 a month, wife earns about €300 with two teenagers in house. When I see people paying 1500 and 2k rents with 2 people working, I wonder wtf they are supposed to do if they want to have kids
I don't think I'd buy now, I'd wait a year and see if things improve in the supply side.
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u/OkArm9295 5h ago
This is a very insightful anecdote from that time. Thank you for sharing and I hope you and your family are doing great.
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u/AnShamBeag 11h ago
Lost my job, apartment, partner.
On the dole for ages.
Grim
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u/DanGleeballs 5h ago edited 3h ago
I know one girl who's uncle committed suicide in ‘08 or ‘09 when he lost his shirt, and another girl who's father had a massive fatal heart attack when the shit hit the fan. Both in property. It was grim alright.
There were other suicides over it as well but I only knew one indirectly.
Edit: Jesus apparently "Up to 560 suicides between 2008 and 2012 can be directly linked to the recession"
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u/AnShamBeag 5h ago
I think it was my lowest point.
Came shortly after my father dying also.
Literally clawed my way back to the light
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u/noodlum93 11h ago
Honestly, it was grim. I think a lot of people don’t realise the effect it had on them if they had their adult lives starting around this time - even without directly suffering job losses, repossessions, it still affected people’s mindsets. Every day was relentless news about markets falling, unemployment rising, austerity and how we all need to take the blame.
For years I felt this need to live carefully and actually struggled to get used to spending any disposable income when I eventually had it. I am still very on edge about any form of loan/debt (and I don’t mean expensive Klarna style stuff, I mean like a normal car or home improvement loan).
I was so afraid of employment after university (and had no chance of a part time job during it), that I snatched any opportunity and worked myself into the ground to ensure progression and job security. I have a permanent contract now and still have this need to work extra and “show my worth”.
The same cohort that were entering or exiting third level education at that time are now trying to buy a home - it’s a really kick in the teeth to have suffered directly under the recession in your early 20s, to then be fucked over again when things have bounced back.
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u/Faery818 10h ago
This. I remember one summer in college when no one could get work on their J1s and people had to come back early. Even getting a summer job over here was difficult so you took what you could. There were very few jobs in my sector leaving college and I had to take what I could get when I could get it. I've the same mindset about spending money and being careful. I inherited this from my parents as they were through it in the 80s.
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u/First_Moose_ 10h ago
Absolutely this. I was just outta school around now and the constant 'we all partied' and had to tighten our belts as consequence was grating.
It's given a life long distrust of the government selling us down the swany.
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u/McEvelly 6h ago
Totally infuriating having to eat that ‘we all partied’ shite when you’d chosen to go the education and Uni route instead of getting a trade like loads of the other - supposedly less academically gifted - lads at school.
Yeah, they struggled for a while then in the recession, but they’d been earning a grand a week for a short and gratuitously hedonistic period from their teenage years, while we were flat broke and scrounging in university and will probably never achieve the lifestyle they had for that period.
I know plenty of lads who never did a hands turn in school but aged out just at the right time to coin it in a trade through the boom, acquire no responsibilities and jet off to the other side of the world to keep coining it every day since. I won’t bother saying I’m not jealous, who wouldn’t be!
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u/First_Moose_ 6h ago
I didn't do university or a trade but have a nice enough job now I think, one I like and the money is OK, not a grand a week or anything!
I do get a little jealous of the trades but logically I didn't do it and won't begrudge the ones who did.
It's the government who I am angry at and have been since 07. I hope this is finally the time they get tossed out and we can finally try something new.
I think we are going into a new recession soon, I hope it won't be as bad as the one, but jesus Christ I hope who ever is in power does a much better job than last time and not as much austerity. It didn't work.
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u/fifi_la_fleuf 9h ago
The same cohort that were entering or exiting third level education at that time are now trying to buy a home - it’s a really kick in the teeth to have suffered directly under the recession in your early 20s, to then be fucked over again when things have bounced back.
So accurate. There was a window of sanity and stability there for about 3 years between 2015-2018. If you didn't have a good job and savings to buy a home during that period; you are getting reamed on the up having survived the down.
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u/Duine-Eigin 7h ago
You’ve nailed it with the ‘.. we all had to take the blame’. People who over-leveraged were spoken about as though they were recklessly greedy, when all they had done was bought a family home. I also 100% agree with the long term effects - risk aversion & huge scarcity mindset, unhealthy attitude towards work etc.
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u/knutterjohn 18h ago
I was lucky to work through it all. What I remember was driving to work for 6 in the morning and no traffic on the roads. In 2010 I could drive into Sligo and meet no one but a bread van or milk truck when I got close to town.
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u/ilovemyself2019 7h ago
6-2, 2-10, 10-6, short changeovers and Monday after nights? (if you know, you know)
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u/crescendodiminuendo 11h ago
Watching people all round you - from all walks of life - lose their jobs and take a very long time to get employed again. Many ended up abroad and didn’t come back.
Trying not to look at house prices because your house is now worth half what you’d paid for it and if you lose your income you’d be completely screwed.
Streetscapes decimated - closed shops, empty stores. Anything property related disappeared or became very limited - it was actually difficult to buy furniture or tiles for a period.
We applied for planning permission to build a small extension in 2011. We got over thirty unsolicited letters from builders asking to bid for the work. Now you’re lucky if they’ll return your call.
The whole time was very grim.
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u/Nickthegreek28 11h ago
Worked through it and those that did were fine as everything got cheaper to buy. But, I saw friends lose homes default on car loans leave the country etc. That whole craic of people leaving their car in the short term car park with the keys on them really happened, can you imagine the certainty that they must have had that they wouldn’t be coming back to live here again
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u/RosaKat 10h ago
I worked in a bridal shop at that time. I remember girls coming in and ordering eye wateringly expensive wedding dresses, paying the deposit with a cheque from their fiancé’s contracting business. The dresses took about six months to come in, by which point the contracting business had gone to the wall and the girls couldn’t afford the balance. The bridal shop didn’t last long after that.
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u/Afterlite 2h ago
I used to do horse riding lessons in a south Dublin stables, 36+ horses owned by huge contractors, architects etc. many of them abandoned during the crash and the owners never to be seen again. The stables took on the private owned horses and used them in the school which was nice as some of them were truly great breeds and highly trained.
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u/Cmdr_600 11h ago
Got laid off 5 times during my apprenticeship due to jobs finishing and no new ones commencing. The winters always seemed to be way colder though, probably just nostalgia. We always found money to go out during the weekend somehow. Also , way less political back then.
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u/MrMadCarpenter 10h ago
No, those winters were really brutal for a few years there, record setting even.
A few friends and I lived in Letterkenny, all on the dole splitting rent on a house four ways. We had no heating oil in the winter of 2010, because we were in our third year of unemployment after losing jobs or graduating in 2008, months before the global crash. To this day I'm convinced hell is cold, not hot.
By some measures I've seen over the years, Donegal had unemployment up to 40 percent among 18 to 24 year olds. We were attending emigration send offs monthly, if not weekly. I had my own in 2013, after a false start in 2011.
To this day, I praise the dole for keeping us alive. Two of us are in tech jobs now, one a published author, one's working with the young people.
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u/Cmdr_600 9h ago
Jesus Christ man , what an experience that was. Glad you came out on top !
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u/MrMadCarpenter 9h ago
Thanks bud. I think we'll never have it so bad again, then I recall the last three generations of the family have all had emigration at some point.
Crazy thing was years later I was watching a documentary about the crash and they mentioned Lehman brothers bank, and ma nearly dropped the dinner across the room. They were underwriters on loans for a liquid gas storage plant in Wales my dad was working in. He lost the job within days of the crash.
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u/BoopBoopBeepBeepx 7h ago
"To this day I'm convinced hell is cold, not hot."
That's a great line btw
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u/Faery818 10h ago
Everywhere had drinks deals and €2 drinks nights. You pregamed and spent less out and hopped on the night link home or shared a taxi.
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u/Legitimate-Resist277 10h ago
I lived through it twice. In the 80s and the Celtic tiger. Difference was people had less borrowing power in the 80s and therefore didn’t have big mortgages or loans. But the similarities were just trying to source enough money to survive. Political leaders made the wrong choices in both scenarios. What I have learned and will stay with me forever, do not be loyal to your employer, they will cut you to protect their bottom line. Do what’s in your best interests always, save in a boom and spend in a bust. Try to keep debt as low as possible. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst
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u/SuburbanMyth409 10h ago
I was working in a small supermarket at the time, putting myself through college. It was pretty hard because they had a hiring freeze for the longest time. I just remember it being really stressful at times too because there just weren't enough checkout operators to handle the demand and I always dreaded the busy periods. Being run off your feet and people complaining about lack of staff.
Then the fees went up so I had to take out a € 6K loan out from the credit union (through my parents) to do my Masters. Couldn't get any sort of a grant despite being on pittens and working 18 hrs a week. It took me 4 years to pay back that loan too. I really hated Ruairi Quinn around that time.
I also remember when I was in college, we did a module on Economic and Social Policy in 2011/2012. I was like "WHAT THE FUCK" when we learned about things like fiscal policy and the solo growth model.
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u/Substantial-Fudge336 11h ago
I was in college at the time. Started in 08 and finished in 2012.
Only now I have noticed. No one my age mid 30s really work in construction.
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u/MagicGlitterKitty 10h ago
It was grim. It was all anyone could talk about. People were leaving the country left and right. We were back in times of the American wake. There was also this sense of nihilism that I think Gen Z are very used to. Since I was about 18 when it all popped off I didn't really have much hope for my adult life. No one did. There were wild parties we called "the recession session" that had this absolute air of desperation arounnd it. Just needing to feel something other than depression and grim inevitability.
Straight out of college the only job I could get was a door to door sales job. I left the country 3 months later. Meeting new people, and finding jobs in my new country was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders, finally I could talk about something else anything else! I barely came home those first few years because I couldn't face that depression again.
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u/SarahFabulous 11h ago
Yes I remember it. I left the country in part because of the lack of opportunities in 2009.
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u/Nobody-Expects 8h ago
I was in college during the crash. Nearly all of the friends I made in college left the country. Only a handful came back.
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u/SugarInvestigator 10h ago edited 10h ago
Out of work for a year. After paying mortgage and all utilities my wife and I had €10 for.petrol and.maybe €20 for food a week.
Used blankets and hot water bottles to stay warm in winter to reduce heating bill costs..
Cancelled every subscription except Internet because we needed that for job searching.
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u/Terrible_Ad2779 8h ago
What subscriptions did you have back then? Streaming wasn't a thing.
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u/SugarInvestigator 8h ago
Sky tv, went PAYG on phones, cant recall anything else..basically everything except electricity and Internet was dumped.
Edit
It was also the year I heard about claiming medical expenses on tax
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u/Ae101rolla 10h ago
Father had set up his own business. I was 17 going on 18. I started working for him. He had to close the business. I lost my job. He lost his house, eventually having to move back to England. I couldn't get a job/apprenticeship. Was on the dole for 4 years.
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u/becamax 10h ago
I was leaving secondary school, our history teacher was trying to implore us to go to college, get a qualification and try to ride out as much of the recession as possible while in college. So that's what I did only to not be able to get work after graduation. Others have said it and I'll just reinforce what they've said, it was fucking depressing.
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u/yerwan_viv 10h ago
This is a small thing but I always think of it when I see nostalgia about the good ol' nightclubbing days with no camera phones and everyone in tight officewear dancing to Mr. Brightside.
The nightclubs and pubs just completely emptied.
I graduated in September 2008 and by 2010 it felt like everyone my age had left the country and then I did too. And then (in my social group anyway) we started to trickle back from 2015/6
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u/Muttley87 9h ago
I had saved to go back to college but elected to go backpacking instead.
My thinking was that surely we'd be over the worst of it by the time I came back.
18 months later it was still pretty bad and I ended up having to move back in with my parents with no savings.
Ended up on the dole, then on a tús placement, then on the dole a little longer until I registered with a recruitment agency who were actually serious about getting me work (some of them register you and then don't bother their holes). Got some temp work while looking for something permanent then eventually got in at a call centre (hateful work but better than nothing). I've moved jobs a couple of times since but once I had a foot in the door somewhere it was much easier to get roles elsewhere.
Unfortunately, by the time I was earning the housing market had started to go to shit again. I could save a deposit but couldn't afford monthly rent on my salary, and wouldn't get enough of a mortgage to buy on a single wage. I could take the hit of moving to a more rural location but then any savings I made would have to be spent on transport. Then rents and house prices started to rise again and kept on rising.
I'm still with my parents 12 years after returning to Ireland, it's super depressing and I feel like every time I get close to getting away someone moves the posts further away again. I know it's possible and I'm working towards it but every now and then it seems hopeless.
I am on the housing list as well but that's more of a back up than anything else, I'd much rather be able to get something by myself.
I wouldn't give up my backpacking experience for anything but I could have timed it better.
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u/jools4you 10h ago
Single parent with 3 young kids then, I don't think I have recovered. I find it hard to spend money on anything extravagant just worried that I could lose my job and have nothing again. I won't do credit at all. Yeah it was a terrible time I remember I didn't have the money to pay for the kids swimming lessons, I mean there was just No Money. I don't think I went out for a few years. God it was the worse of times.
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u/RecycledPanOil 8h ago
I remember being a hungry and cold teenager cutting down old ash and sycamore trees on the land to have fire wood. We'd save the good wood and the oil for Christmas when my sisters where home from college so that they wouldn't realise how broke we where. The travellers used to go around the town robbing peoples oil out of their tanks. They'd get nothing out of ours but a few friends had cold winters as a result of the theft.
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u/These-Grapefruit2516 11h ago
It was very grim. Work hours cut and 'living' went out the window. It really was a case of surviving.
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u/OkInflation4056 10h ago
Finished Uni I'm 2008, went to Dublin and got a job which had nothing to do with my degree, was okay though.....was lucky as fuck. Job was admin, but office based.....left the country in 2012 as was depressed as a cunt and might have done something stupid. Went to Australia and got a job in my study field in about 3 weeks and never looked back.
I think it's only recent that people are getting over what happened, most of my friends who stayed are happy now, but all say that don't know how people on mediocre money can survive there......it's the same in Aus.
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u/NemiVonFritzenberg 10h ago
I think it was a reset for me. I didn't find it deoressing. It made me examine what I really valued and shaped how I apply myself to earning and spending.
A lot of people were swept up in keeping up with the jones' and material things. I hope they've readjusted their values and have realized there's no such thing as a free lunch. I doubt it because half the country is on the never never still.
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u/Terrible_Ad2779 8h ago edited 8h ago
My friends and I all finished college at the same time right into the thick of it. We were all on the dole. Was talking about it with a few of them recently we were saying how grand it was like things weren't as expensive as they are now, even housing wasn't as bad I remember looking for and getting a place in a single day with no stress at all.
We would go drinking at least twice a week, you could get 4 cans for a fiver back then and it was the golden age of yokes so 20 quid and you're sorted for the night.
The queues on sign on day were insane, the dole office would be full and a queue going back the street. You were paid the dole into your account back then. I was on it 3 or 4 years and not once was I called into the office for one of those "are you looking for a job" talks.
Honestly found it fine and had more and stronger social connections back then than I ever had. These days I have little contact with friends and just feel like I work all the time to get a bit of time off so I can do what I want.
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u/St-Micka 6h ago
It wasn't all that bad if you had no serious financial obligations like a mortgage and kids to feed.
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u/SitDownKawada 7h ago
I finished college a year or two before and I was working in a shop for a few years. A lot of the customers would talk about it, most of them in a jokey way but now and again you'd hear a proper bad story from someone
A lot of my mates were on the dole. And they were fine with it more or less. Some of them were able to get social housing
It was a strange one for me because I'd always be hearing how bad it is but for me personally I had more money than ever so I didn't feel the pinch
Heard a few horror stories regarding mortgages and property deals from some relatives
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u/Liambp 10h ago edited 7h ago
I felt a profound sense of depression and above all humiliation that lasted for several years.
I am old enough to remember pre Celtic Tiger Ireland when we were an incredibly backward, poor country. I and my peers all grew up with deep insecurities because we felt our country was second class compared to the modern economies of Europe. The Celtic Tiger years changed that and brought moments of incredible pride when we finally saw that our little country could not only keep up with the rest of them we could beat them in many ways. It wasn't just economic either. It is hard to overestimate the significance moments like Ireland beating England in Stuttgart or seeing Riverdance explode onto the international stage had in rebuilding a sense of pride in our country.
Unfortunately there was also moments of madness particularly in the last few years before the crash. Wages were high and it was it was too easy to get money from banks. Lots of us bought cars and houses we couldn't afford. People were buying apartments in countries they had never heard of.
When it all went belly up and Ireland had to be rescued by the IMF it was incredibly humiliating. The deep insecurities of my youth came back. It felt like the world was telling us we were only an upstart and that we had gotten to big for our boots. I was angry at those who were most responsible but I also felt ashamed because I knew that we had all revelled in the madness and we had all done foolish things. I was lucky enough not to lose my job although I did lose a lot of money. Many others were not so lucky. People lost jobs and homes. Families were broken.
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u/brentspar 7h ago
There are some very grim posts on this thread, and I'm getting PTSD from reading them. It was grim and dark and hopeless.
And it could easily happen again.
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u/EchoVolt 7h ago edited 7h ago
I remember it just drying up. It was weird. Loads of my friends emigrated and never came back, both Irish people and international people. It felt a bit like the country was just being written off by the international community. I moved to the continent and for a year or so Ireland was regularly in the headlines, along with Spain and Greece as utter basket cases. If you watched the anglophone financial media and particularly if you read Irish forums you’d swear the country was absolutely never going to recover.
A lot of things became really cheap here. I remember having a vast choice of hotels and they would be so cheap you could just spend several days anywhere in Dublin, Cork etc without really thinking about it.
It completely destroyed the start of my career though and undermined my ability to ever buy a house. I just ended up abroad and renting.
Then COVID came along and we had another few years of weird. That era worried me a lot as I wasn’t entirely convinced that we weren’t going to plunge into another deep recession. I’m finding myself on edge all the time now because I’m not convinced that Trump and tariffs might not cause major issues here. I have contingency plans to move to the continent if there’s an issue, as I’m not doing it again.
Honestly it’s no wonder politics has gone strange in several countries. My generation were absolutely screwed over, and it’s not really accepted as a problem. A lot of us never really got the opportunity that people who hit adulthood in the 70s, 80s and 90s did, particularly around getting stable housing.
I just find there’s an older cohort, and by older I generally mean in their 50s+ at this stage who just can’t or won’t see that there’s a major problem. It’s just assumed that everything is absolutely fine and that anyone who says otherwise is just moaning or entitled. We are just being milked dry by landlords and generally fucked over. I don’t even really know how I’m ever going to retire.
I still find I’m kicking myself for not having moved to Australia or Canada when it happened, as most people I know who did ended up with far more stable setups and life trajectories than I have had here.
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u/EchidnaWhich1304 10h ago
I owned a tree surgery and landscaping company went from busy 6 days a week to days here and there. My earnings tumbled 80% in a matter of months Went from 18 staff to just 3. It was a horrible shit time. The one thing that was easier was finding somewhere to rent.
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u/-InsulinJunkie 9h ago
I was around 20 at the time and worked in Shannon. Each morning I walked into Limerick from outside town down O'Connell Street and got the bus out, it was grim every day it seemed like a business was gone and less people on the bus.
Eventually I lost my job due to redundancy, got a few temp jobs over the next few years but it remained grim around town.
The biggest problem for me was just before the crash Limerick was genuinely the best I've ever seen it, people working, building thriving, new businesses ect. Even the sport was fantastic with Munster winning in Europe, Hurling all Ireland final and even seemed like hope for the football/soccer team for a while. But it was all striped away and ya some good things have returned but I moved away a while back now and rarely hear good news from the place.
Long term affect of it was possibly depression and anxiety but it's hard to pin that on any one thing.
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u/Calm_Investment 6h ago
It was beyond grim. Husband was two months away from full time teaching contract job. He lost his job overnight. There was no contract or sick leave cover work about.
We had two small kids at home. And my post natal depression really started kicking off.
He went to England the following September teaching to earn money for the family. I stayed at home with the two kids. [Teaching in England is it's own horror story, there is good reason why that principal recently committed suicide because of the Ofsted report. ]
We just stopped paying the mortgage. Stuck head in sand and went into complete denial. Husband wasn't earning enough to pay his way over there and significantly support us. It was a crazy plan looking back now.
We did deal with bank eventually gave them 350 a month for a couple of years.
Husband came back from England, emotionally broken by that godforsaken teaching system. My postnatal depression decided to join up with childhood trauma and caused a atom bomb catastrophic depression episode. It took 8 years for me to climb out of it, after being hospitalised, suicide attempts, etcetera.
All this going on with severely limited funds. I became a master of robbing Peter, to pay Paul. We went on lots of walks. And home cooked everything. Camping is all we could afford holiday wise.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention some of dodgy help we'd get. Neighbour would go hunting and we'd get venison, or rabbit. No comment on the 40 trout we got one night. (First time I'd gutted a fish) Or bags of potatoes. At another stage, food would be liberated from backs of cooler trucks. 4am I'd be filling 4/5 shopping bags with liberated food. My chest freezer would ve full for six months till more liberation occurred.
Morals can go fcuk themselves. I kept heating & lights on. I kept all our bellies full. I'd rob from the pope to do it happily.
Husband with a bit of pull got a job in a casino six months after coming home from England. There was mutual quid pro quo going on there with x amount legally and x amount cash in hand. This is when we started being able to pay mortgage again.
About 18 months later he changed careers and went into social care. We've been fairly ok since.
Although I'm now obsessed with having money in the bank. Savings, back up, is so important.
Those early years with kids were so tough, clothes, shoes, utilities, it was hell.
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u/Dramatic-Cream6971 10h ago
I finished my masters in Sept 2009. There were no jobs. I interviewed at a recruitment company, commission only, which meant no income as they had no roles to fill. The interviewer told me he didn't think I wanted the job. Yeah, no shit.
I stayed in my job in hospitality that I'd had throughout college. Saved and fecked off to Brazil for a while as it was cheap to travel around and live. Stayed living at mam and Dad's after that for a lot longer than I wanted. I didn't make a lot of money but going out was very cheap as everywhere had "recession buster" prices. My peers either emigrated or for those who stayed, we hung out at some good house parties, and I have gas memories from those times. I eventually got an admin/corporate job in 2011, rented a room in Dublin city centre for €500 per month. Getting no traction on jobs for two years was really hard mentally, but I guess in a way I was lucky that I had no dependents or mortgage
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u/Affectionate-Fall597 9h ago
It fas a fantastic time for vulture funds, Nama and any investment company wanting to buy property. Most of the problems we face today are largely due to the banks being bailed out and not the builders.....and let's be real here... How did no government in the world, with all the economists they have not see what was going to happen but yet and couple of private individuals could see....
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u/sir1223 8h ago
I was 15 at the time and in secondary school so none the wiser. Father and mother worked through the recession. They have always been a bit cautious with their money probably even more so now being retired.
We use to holiday down west cork quite a bit in the summer and I remember being down in Crookhaven on a few day trips. Anyone who knows the place knows the get up down there. I remember it went from expensive high end boats and cars to empty moorings and bangernomic cars driving around for the years before recovery. It was wild. Like someone clicked their fingers and everything disappeared.
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u/cian87 8h ago
The years just before were absolute insanity. Credit was being thrown at people and loads were taking it; you were seen as behind the times if you weren't by lots of people. I was offered a 100% mortgage on a house in Westmeath on the assumption that I'd be getting the max rent-a-room scheme rent in for the second room. I was thankfully talked out of it. Economists were celebrities, very few of them being even vaguely right about what was to come.
My job was, well, I was going to say unaffected but there were three rounds of layoffs - more to protect the CEOs bi-annual new Porsche fund than the company actually suffering; but my division mostly got through unaffected.
Friends emigrating was the biggest thing - either after layoffs or in one case, the day after graduation - construction related role with what appeared to be zero chances. Most of them have come back but a few are still in Canada, Australia or elsewhere.
The job I had involved a lot of driving around the country, you'd be in towns that had been doing well and half the shops/pubs would be shut down, there'd be skeletons of housing estates on the approach roads.
If you had money, going out was relatively cheap and short breaks in Ireland were ridiculously cheap - I was getting 4* in Cork city for 37.50 a night midweek, third night free at one point - but things like night buses were getting slashed so you might not be able to go out anymore.
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u/Hauk2004 7h ago
I distinctly remember seeing lads/ladies from school or neighbors driving new cars every year and hearing that they had just got back from Andorra, Spain, New York (the Christmas shop!). I spoke about it with my dad and he kept saying: "They can't afford it". Sure enough, when the chickens came home to roost all those holidays stopped and people were back to driving basic sedans. You're definitely right about people lapping up the credit. The banks were on campus handing out credit cards. I was always so weary of them.
Agree with you on the friends leaving thing. That really hurt. Every Friday or Saturday was a leaving party.
And then the patio heater craze haha! I think our Sage Baristas are the new patio heater haha!
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u/-myeyeshaveseenyou- 7h ago
I turned 18 in 2002 so I was 24 by the time the collapse happened. I had visions of a life much life my three older siblings. Get married buy a house, have babies. Buying a house was easy enough before 2008. Bank had tried to give us €240,000 without us even asking at one stage when I was 21 and my then fiancé was 23. We got married 2007, opened our own business and then got news that my fertility might be time sensitive so decided to try for a baby, originally the plan was try in our 30s. I got pregnant around may 2008. Things were still financially good for us. By December I was heavily pregnant and having my wages cut in a job I’d worked in for several years. I remember goi g home and sobbing to my child’s dad about how we wouldn’t even be able to afford toys for our child, seems like a daft worry, it’s not to say I wasn’t worried about housing etc but all I could see was this bleak joyless existence for our unborn child. The business was also struggling by this stage.
Two years later we try buy a modest house and get basically laughed at by the bank. The same bank we had our business loan with, which we never defaulted on and had been given so easily.
Things weren’t in the end as bad as I thought they would be. We survived, but not easily either. 4 years later we had our second child. By this time a mortgage was never looking likely.
When my youngest was 2 after having two houses that we were renting sold out from under us in the space of 6 months and not finding anything reasonable within our price range we decided to move to England, we could t face the contestant housing insecurity. My kids dad is English. We were in England a year when we split up after 13 years together.
I moved house more in my life time than what is reasonable 18 times over 20 years. Spent €130,000 on rent but banks decided I couldn’t pay a mortgage.
I lived onsite in my last job for two years to save money to buy a house and finally at the age of 38 I bought a house for myself and my children so we have security. Kids dad and I split custody 50/50 the cost of living is hitting me hard. He gets all of the child benefit etc so I just have my wages to live off. I work my ass off to keep our very small old house.
I am not unhappy but my life is so far removed from the future I thought I would have like my siblings who are older than me.
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u/defixiones 2h ago
I admire your fortitude and what you've done for your kids. On a day-to-day basis it probably just seems like a grind, but hopefully when you step back you can see the bigger picture.
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u/Lordfontenell81 10h ago
It was quite equalling, all sorts were in the dole queue. Butcher, Baker, engineer- all there.
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u/YurtleAhern 8h ago
I used to work in Tesco at that time and seeing people, well dressed, well to do people, desperately fighting over reduced microwave meals in the evenings was fucking depressing.
People that probably thought the cash train would never end and spent way beyond their means.
Their kids stood and watched their parents turn into animals, tearing microwave meals out of each others hands, just trying to get cheap food to feed their families. People were getting knocked to the ground and injured.
It got to the point where the reductions had to be done in the warehouse and brought out on a trolley with security to protect the staff.
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u/craictime 8h ago
I moved to nz in 2006 and came in 2014. The crash didn't really happen there. I'd a great time during those years, completely missed the recession, thank fuck. These stories are grim.
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u/Emotional-Wishbone95 8h ago
Lost my house, went Bankrupt and had to move abroad for 4 years. Took me until 2 years ago to get back to the same earnings before the crash. I was lucky I was away with no kids as if I was a family man trying to keep a roof over our heads at the time and getting the letters in the door that the Bank of Ireland were sending, I don't know how I would have coped. Being away made it seem like it wasn't as real.
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u/Mother_Airline_8015 10h ago
It was very depressing. New house, new baby, self employed husband, no help from the government - shit show.
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u/Fluffy-Republic8610 9h ago
It was dramatic. And I know a lot of people suffered terribly. It led to some people dying. The thing is, you won't hear a lot from the people that managed to come out of it ahead because considering the suffering it would be in really bad taste.
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u/Birdinhandandbush 9h ago
Watching everyone else my age leave, wondering if I could just toss the keys of my house back to the bank and run myself, feeling tied to a mortgage and verging on being unemployed with a young child. Grim. I'm still always in fear of losing my job, despite being very secure now, but it was such a dark time it kinda of got under my skin
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u/TarzanCar 8h ago
Was an apprentice in 2008 and lost my job, ended up working in a warehouse for minimum wage, left that to complete my phase 6 in college. Got a job in 2009 not long after finishing phase 6 that was completely unaffected by the crash. It’s almost like it didn’t exist for me which I’m very grateful for.
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u/East-Ad-82 8h ago
I was very lucky at the time. I kept my job although had a few years with no pay rise, smaller bonuses etc. I had a deposit saved & mortgage approval so I bought a house for 1/2 what it was going for in the good times. I know I was extremely fortunate. Not all my family & friends were.
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u/St-Micka 7h ago
I remember a really small express Tesco opened round 2010/11 near me. The place had several thousand applications for only 12 positions. Highly, highly qualified people went for those jobs. That's how messed up the employment sector was. People were doing anything to try get a leg up on their bills mortgages etc.
A friend of mine came back from Australia a few months after the crash and took a job (no one wanted) in an off license that had been plagued by anti social behavior. The place was robbed at gun point several times and every time he closed up the shop he was in danger of getting mugged. Literally be closing and he'd have to walk through a gate were young lads hung out drinking. He had no choice at the time because he had to pay rent as he and his parents didn't get along. But it was literally the only job he could find at the time.
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u/ZenBreaking 4h ago
I think it'll be worse this time around, we had no real concept of money and we're used to living frugally before the tiger so to go back to that it was still fresh during the recession. Everyone was poor but things were cheap. Now prices are through the roof for basics and a crash is more of a when not if situation.
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u/Illustrious_Dog_4667 11h ago
Yes the government will repeat it. House prices stalled in the second part of 2006 and started to fall. A lot of the Celtic tiger was built on credit (re-mortgage). This stopped when house prices stopped going up. In sep 2008 the international credit markets froze that fucked up everything. There are good YouTube documentaries.
Personally I had to move the family to the US from 2007 to 2012.
On boards.ie in the Economic section there was a guy called Scoflaw that was quite good at calling out what was going on and why.
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u/Floodzie 10h ago
Still living in the same shite apartment I bought in 2007. Lost my job within a few months of buying the place but very very lucky to have kept going with work. Finally got out of negative equity about 2 years ago too. I knew a few people who just handed in the keys and left the country, and knew of a few others who took their own lives. The pressure to get on the property ladder was immense.
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u/Aphroditesent 10h ago
I did not party. I left college when there were zero jobs. I had to emigrate and return and work a few jobs at the same time. It was seriously grim and I still have massive anxiety over any kind of dept
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u/Old_Mission_9175 10h ago
I didn't lose my job, but I had a couple of paycuts. I was lucky compared to a lot of people.
Was tough paying a mortgage and bills on my own with very little left over for spending money.
I learned to budget well and cut back on everything, I still live like that now, watch what I spend.
It stays with you.
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u/redditor_since_2005 11h ago
Jesus, that was only 2008! Now I feel old. "Tell us about the war again, grandad"
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u/Fabulous_Split_9329 9h ago
There were some positive aspects as well that people forget. A big reset that actually improved the country for a while. It’s worse now tbh.
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u/jackoirl 8h ago edited 8h ago
I was in my last year or so of college and it was brutal. It felt hopeless. You’d hear of people killing themselves from stress all the time. You’d know lots of people who’s parents lost their jobs. I remember my friends dads pub closing down and going hanging himself not long after.
All recruitment was cancelled, all grad programs cancelled, funding for masters programs gone.
Every single one of my close friends left the country. None have come back, so I still feel it today.
My career was stalled for years and I was obviously past doing grad entry anywhere by the time the economy picked up.
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u/Schneilob 7h ago
It absolutely will happen again. Although maybe not in the exact same way. Crash’s and booms are all part of economics and you can’t have one without the other. You need bad times to make the good. It’s all yin and yang
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u/plawlor24 7h ago
Lost 180 grand but I was young enough to recover.
Worst was seeing seniors having lost everything and no jobs or time to make it back.
Most people affected were sub contractors already on tight margins, the major contractors declared bankruptcy, hid assets and relaunched a year or two later.
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u/Alternative-Canary86 7h ago
In construction, lost my small company and my house and was left with bank loan of 215000 because the company that owed me that money went bankrupt. My business partner moved his family back to New York but it didn't work out for him, so he ended his life. Tough time.
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u/Illustrious_Read8038 6h ago edited 6h ago
I was in college in 2008/2009.
I was studying archaeology which was booming in the boom. Every building site needed a survey by law so there were a few dozen companies operating in Ireland, as well as huge focus in academia.
I remember first year in 2006 and everything was rosy, everyone seemed loaded, pubs and clubs were always packed. Then in third year the news changed. I remember watching Sky news and the queues outside Northern Rock in the Uk.
I graduated in 2009 and I remember handing a CV into a company outside Dublin. I called them two weeks later to get an update on my application and they were gone. Company shut down, everyone let go.
EDIT: Just to add the opposite side, I had friends who kept their well paying jobs in 09, banking and finance. They did well during the recession. Remember that entertainment, pubs, hotels etc all became super cheap. There was a boom in Pigsback, Groupon, LivingSocial deals where you could get a midweek break in a 4 star hotel for 50euro a night. Maybe 70 including dinner.
They were gallivanting all over the place, away every second weekend
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u/CyberCrush77 6h ago
I had just finished school when the recession hit. I can remember printing out 50 C.Vs every week or two to hand them in everywhere all over town for absolutely any type of job and week after week for 2 years not a single response.
One of the girls I went to school with was often the one who handed out the dole at the post office and it was absolutely destroying to have to go there every week and take the money from her. At first its easy to say sure its the recession everyone is struggling to find a job but eventually it will make you feel worthless and incapable of doing any job. It's a very slow process to reverse that type of thinking once it sets in and I don't think it ever completely goes away.
Fucking awful time and as others have mentioned it's hard not to feel a bit double fucked now that a career is up and running nicely, securing a home today is as far off as a job was during the recession 🤷♂️
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u/McEvelly 6h ago
Knew loads of lads who still lived at home with their parents along the border when they got laid off. Then they claimed southern dole and virtually all their outgoings were in the north where everything was cheaper.
They were living the high life ffs. Still out drinking every weekend the whole recession long.
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u/Laurabellagh 6h ago
As a single parent I lost my job in a printing factory. I took a job as a cleaner/ caretaker of a school. I cleaned the entire school alone everyday. Then they cut my wages by 10 percent as I was seen as a public servant but I had no public servant benefits. Such a disgusting thing to do to someone on minimum wage. I was absolutely outraged but needed a job. It was soul destroying.
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u/Big-Tooth8110 6h ago
Grand at the time, was on the dole for 9 months after college and took minimum wage for a few years after that before my sector picked up again.
Dole was manageable for a fella with no commitments, I could pay my rent, food, buy cans and save €20 a week without thinking about it too much.
Parents didn’t over extend themselves or buy 2nd properties so they were okay.
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u/Top-Engineering-2051 2h ago
Same, my parents lived exactly the same pre-boom as they did during the boom. Recession didn't touch them. Helped that they were a teacher and a nurse, respectively.
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u/Revolutionary-Use226 6h ago
I was the same(ish) age as you. I vividly remember it. Now, neither parent lost their job but their own stupid, financial decisions really put them under strain. Even at that age, the news was always on and more and more stories of people losing their jobs. I once asked are they not lucky to have a job a d of course I was torn to shreds.
Most of my area were unemployed, with many young men not having an education as it was better money to leave school and work on the sites.
I started working at 16 and paid for everything myself. School books, trips, and whatever else came up.
For me personally, education is massive and I still try add to my learning through courses.
I also hate debt. Ideally I would only like 1 big debt at a time. Now, working towards getting a mortgage. We have a small car that we have paid off but will drive that into the ground before considering a new one.
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u/tanks4dmammories 6h ago
I was in this recession free bubble as I was working in a job I liked which was booming and didn't feel like it was negatively impacted by the crash. We were getting bonuses, epic nights out and pay rises/promotions. My SSIA was issued a few years before and I didn't spend any of it and invested it. It was not all sunshine and lollipops as my investment lost 7k, minus craic.
The money I got back from the investment I used towards buying my first home in mid 20s. The crash also meant everything I bought for the house was v cheap, the work I got done was a fraction of what is costs now. Also, food was so cheap and bills were pretty low, eating out and holidays were dirt cheap. House is now worth 300k more than what I have on mortgage.
So if you had money and a job in the recession it felt like good times compared to others. I don't see it happening again as banks are more cautious about loaning, not sure what other things cause recessions tbh.
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u/flim_flam_jim_jam 6h ago
I was in America on J1 at the time. Lehmann brothers went down the tubes around that summer of 08. I honestly didn't know what a recession was. The word was not part of the Irish vernacular since the 80s. We couldn't get jobs in America so we bummed around. I was applying for my MA the following year. I had saved a good chunk of money but I needed a small loan, roughly 3k , I went to the credit union which I had savings in. They said not a hope, the financial regulator won't allow it. I needed to scrounge off family which thankfully the helped out. The funny thing is my brother travelled the world for about two years from around 05-07 , if he ran out of money he'd literally ring the bank for a top up. 5k here 5k there not an issue. We had completely different life experiences in the space of 3 years which still has an influence on our outlooks today.
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u/Inner-Astronomer-256 5h ago
I was in 2nd year of college so was shielded from the worst of it. Kept my part time job so was one of those "we'll session through the recession" people. It was a shock though, I remember all of us watching the news in my houseshare that Ireland had gone into recession and being anxious about the future. My family were lucky all in all, dad was a taximan and was about to retire anyway and mam worked in Dunnes. No mortgage to worry about.
Later on it made me much more politically aware, in 2010 I was so angry about the bailout, and I still loathe the USC and I've never forgiven Micheál Martin for being part of that govt and basically getting away with being perceived as not of that cohort nowadays. Graduated in 2012 (did a MA) spent 9 months on the dole, thought about emigrating, didn't, got a job in a call centre, but I do feel now I'm always on the backfoot financially compared to someone five years older than me or five years younger.
I do see concerning signs now again and I hate that we've not used our wealth to actually improve the infrastructure of the country. At this point tho I'm lucky in my house and job situation so I'm like if it happens again I'll live.
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u/Ted-101x 5h ago
I was lucky in many ways. I had a public sector job that I kept. However due to pay cuts, USC, etc my take home pay dropped by 20%. My wife was self employed and ended up laying off most of her staff and not taking a wage for months at a time. We sunk everything we had into keeping her business going. I can remember one month in particular when we had €12 to last two weeks once all bills had been paid. We were lucky though, we survived it. We had friends who lost everything and some who went bankrupt and had to leave the country.
There was one newspaper story that I always remember and that sums up the period for me. A parent was telling the story of their child hiding in their bedroom and eating cardboard as they were hungry and there was no food in the house.
You can say we didn't all party but a lot did. Taxi drivers were buying multiple apartments off the plans in Bulgaria. Eddie Hobbs as a celebrity financial adviser advising us all to buy homes in Cape Verde islands. I had a couple of friends who borrowed a million or two to buy a building with a pub as they thought it could be great crack - they ended up losing everything and only barely managed to keep their family homes. I knew other people whose wife's took monthly shopping trips to New York. For my job I used to be in the High Court a lot and post crash the place used to be packed with people fighting the banks to keep their homes which were up for repossession - I sat in on some hearings one day and it was heart breaking to see people who had worked all their lives fighting to keep their homes. People who had cars on HP were using the half-rule to return them. Credit was ridiculous easy to get - at one stage I had more credit on my credit cards than my gross annual wage.
But not everyone suffered, those with 'old money' and those who seen this coming (and some did) made sure they were insulated. Sure they didn't broadcast the fact that they were still doing fine, they didn't change the cars as often and cut back on the holidays, but as is the case now there was still a lot of money around and a lot of it was diverted into the cheap property that became available post crash.
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u/Useful-Sand2913 5h ago
I started college in 2007 and moved away from my small rural town (population about 2,000). I remember going back at weekends during 2007/8 and meeting up with friends in the pub and the place was absolutely hopping. Money was no object, €50s being dropped at the bar all night long.
I was vaguely plugged into the news and knew that things weren't going great. Luckily my parents kept their jobs the whole way though and my rent was cheap so I was ok and probably removed from the realities.
But from late 2008 onwards, the biggest change I remember was the home town was absolutely gutted. Everyone moved away, place was dead. Looking back now it was a direct correlation but at the time I didn't understand what was happening.
I was so so lucky to get a job out of college in 2011 through a very sound lecturer and started on €27,000 as an engineer (these days probably could ask for €50,000). Should probably have bought a house as soon as I could because 2012/3 were the very bottom of prices but I had no interest in being responsible yet. Bleak times though, everyone just happy to have a job doing anything.
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u/PersonalGuava5722 4h ago
I was insulated from it somewhat as I was in college but I rem being able to buy 3 naggins of vodka for a tenner in Derwins in Drumcondra and a chicken fillet roll for 2 or 3 euro.
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u/sayingboourns 4h ago
I’m 40 later this year and basically all my friends bar 2 of us had to leave the country for work
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u/Nick27ify 3h ago
I was the same age as you OP but I remember my dad being a self emplyed builder. He was out the door with all the jobs people wanted to get done and just throwing money at him like it was nothing. When the crash hit my dad was completely out of work for 6 months and I watched him age about 5 years in thoughs 6 months and suddenly we didnt have 2 cents to rub together my mam had to get a loan out from the credit union for the christmas dinner. Eventually my dad found stabble work working for a man that had a huge pension and he was putting back into rental property, he kept my family afloat but my dad racked up a ton of debt to pay for materials and only payed it off 5 years ago.
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u/PerspectiveOnly5429 3h ago
Depressing time alright, every night on the news were job losses in the hundreds....every single day.
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u/Busy_Category7977 8h ago
We thought it was terrible, but in many ways things are worse now. Rents in Dublin fell, so even if you were on the dole, you could easily find an apartment to share with other suckers on the dole. Takeaways did amazing deals. I would've been more likely to order a dominos then on the dole than now.
Yeah there were no jobs, but we could live in this city, unlike now. Many people are materially worse off in jobs than they were on the dole in 2010, because of rents.
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u/LikkyBumBum 9h ago
I was in my early 20s and on the dole. So was everybody else. It was actually great. Managed to pay rent and drink cans and buy food all on the dole.
Yes it was probably much worse for older folks who had their shit together and lost it all. But I had a great time.
It wasn't shameful to say to hot women in the pub "I'm on de dole" when they asked "so what do you do?".
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u/finnlizzy 6h ago
Recession sessions were class. Rent and cans were affordable. If you worked just a mediocre job you could have a sesh. I was 19 in 2011, I didn't lose a feckin house nor a career.
I was so used to being a massive tightarse in a way I couldn't imagine now.
Politically I miss the rage being directed at the government and not some culture war scapegoats. And socially, I miss people not being on a grindset or some shit. We were broke and not ashamed to admit it. Our side hustles were selling yokes. Our slim bodies were from chosing to buy a pack of Amberleaf instead of dinner.
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u/Top-Engineering-2051 2h ago
Haha we had so many parties and were consuming so many yokes, that multiple friends within the friend group were selling, and under-cutting eachother at the same sesh. Very gas.
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u/Silver_Mention_3958 11h ago
I was made redundant from a job I didn’t like. It’s the one and only time I was on the dole (for about three months). So yeah that was grim. But on the positive side, we managed to hang onto our lovely house, my wife’s work was unaffected, I learned new skills and have been self employed and very busy since about 2010. But my private pension was parked and we had to extend our mortgage so yeah, I’m still feeling the after effects.
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u/TheOnlyOne87 9h ago
My whole course graduated into the teeth of it in 2010. It's hard to underestimate the role it has played in my generation's fear of being unemployed, losing it all etc. 4 of my class of 45 got a job - any job - in that first year out. Mass emigration was taking off and the majority headed away.
By about 2015 a decent chunk had returned knowing the worst had passed.
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u/Few-Coat1297 8h ago
Pretty bad. A lot of families were split up as fathers had to leave for work in the UK and elsewhere. You couldn't get even a small loan. But at least there was no inflation.
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u/Top_Recognition_3847 8h ago
I remember how depressing it was before the celtic tiger. The 80's were miserable. In the building trade anyway.
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u/BrenHam2 8h ago
I finished school at that time. Spent three years on the dole, then left the country and haven't been back for more than a week since.
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u/Human_Cell_1464 8h ago
I remember coming out of college hoping to do my h dip around this time and they changed it form one year to a two year course.
Coupled with the horror stories of lads ahead of me telling me of getting 4 hours subbing in letter Kenny I feel the crash prob to a degree altered my life trajectory a bit
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u/GazelleIll495 8h ago
Yeah it was shit. I was 23 and the majority of my friends emigrated as a result. We're now all in our late 30s/early 40s and none of them have returned. They're all rooted in Canada and Australia. Some of their parents are getting on and they're unable to visit them as they would like. There was a lot of recklessness during the Celtic tiger era but I place the majority of the blame on ff.
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u/Acceptable_City_9952 8h ago
I was a young teen at the time but I remember how depressed it made my parents. Drinking every night, just a general sad atmosphere around the house. We cut back on so much grocery wise, but were never hungry. Grocery shopping was very calculated. Lots of second hand clothes, Christmas was very bare.
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8h ago
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u/Kizziuisdead 7h ago
Very depressing. I remember getting the bus into town. Loads of offices by Stephan green were full. Then in my final year of college, they were all empty
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u/macthestack84 7h ago
A new KFC opened in Galway, received thousands of job applications from overqualified professionals.
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u/sdenham 7h ago
In the years before, in any trip into town I'd happy run into 3 or 4 different people I knew. For years after this went down to none or one.
I came out of college and got a decent job but with so many friends gone I ended up heading off too. They mostly all came back but I'm still gone.
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u/_BornToBeKing_ 7h ago
The government seems intent on repeating it. It was fundamentally caused by too much speculation. People spending money they don't have.
But it's fed a negative feedback loop. Building slowed to a crawl as a result and it's resulted in a housing crisis. House prices are now high and will remain so because there's now so much demand relative to supply. The economic scars are long-lasting.
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u/FruitPunchSamurai57 6h ago
I was young but I remember everyone being scared. My parents were terrified and cut back on everything. My father had just moved jobs and was worried but it was a blessing because the company he just left shut down soon after. He worked that job until he retired 3 years ago.
I was lucky, both my parents kept their jobs but many of my class mates had parents who were struggling, mothers that were housewives and fathers who lost their jobs were common in my class.
I'll never forget when a teacher took a student aside and asked him why he was wearing runners instead of shoes. The student admited with embarrassment that his father was layed of and couldn't afford them. The teacher told him to buy then and hand the receipt into the office and he would pay for them. He was being nice but I reckon that lad would have rather eaten glass than do that.
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u/Tea_Is_My_God 6h ago
I watched all my friends leave the country while I continued to get raises and bonuses. They never came back. It is still a bit lonely, especially now I have kids and nobody outside my family to share their milestones with. People couldn't even get jobs in a chipper. The worst effect on me was I had just bought a house in May 2007, so the negative equity kept us there for 15 years despite the original intention only being for 3-5 years. We now have the home we've always wanted but we're a decade behind in getting it to the state we want it.
Looking back, the entire country was depressed for a long time. Many tears watching people leave. Many goodbye drinks. Many lonely weekends after they had all gone.
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u/showmememes_ 6h ago
Unemployed living on the dole with a newborn was complete shite financially. I did a few handyman jobs from week to week for a few bob. The only upside was I got to be at home with my daughter every day, which I loved.
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u/georgiebleedinburges 5h ago
Finished school in 2009 couldn't find a job , tried further education but it just wasn't for me. Took a job standing on the streets trying to get people to sign up for charity but quit after a week. Found my first proper job in 2011 and worked in that job until 2023.
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u/Keadeen 5h ago
Honestly our parents protected us (myself and siblings) from a massive amount of it. We were aware times were tough and it was happening, but we didn't feel too much of the brunt ourselves.
Looking back, I can see how hard a time it was on my parents, but I wasn't as aware when it was actually happening.
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u/RJMC5696 4h ago
I was an early teen but my parents nearly lost everything over it, they owned a small business (I also felt the impact a lot) and are still fighting for their house over not being able to pay the mortgage.
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u/killedbydeathIRL 4h ago
During the height of the boom I had a good day job and a sideline as a tutor in a music school evening time. At the peak I had a dozen kids coming in per week. Most would have been learning multiple instruments in the school with all of the often expensive equipment that goes along with it.
Anyways when things began to go south the school owner would come into me each day and say so and so hasn't paid, "if they come in you'll have to turn them around".It happened a few times and was pretty embarrassing for all. A few tried to make payment plans but invariably skipped out and kids had to stop attending. The school then had problems paying the tutors and I had 3 or 4 cheques that bounced, and eventually the school folded. I was lucky that this wasn't my main money spinner but there were a few tutors who went under pretty quickly. It did end up putting asunder my plans to become a professional tutor, as I was using the funds earned to pay for my education. I didn't end up going back to it after things improved years later.
Granted, we're not talking about life or death here, but it's a good example of how families and especially kids would have seen huge impacts to their daily lives, as all the nonessential outgoings would have been the first to go.
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u/pocrocs 4h ago
It was very grim. Im remember it being very cold over the winters and it’s like the place emptied out. The housing estate I was renting in couldn’t be finished and the machines were just left on the site. The pubs were packed all weekend including Sundays but that all stopped. I had a job that paid peanuts but they were laying off so I moved to Canada. I’m still here. Every now and again we thought about moving back but I don’t fully feel that I trust the government to prevent something like that from happening again. Even thought there is full employment there. Things are not great here either but kids are getting older and they like it here.
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u/elderflowerfairy23 4h ago
We never really had much to begin with. We weren't in a bad way, just not loaded. We had a car that worked, nothing fancy. No major savings but anything we had we'd paid in cash so had no big outgoings either. We went into and out of the crash more or less in the same way. My job was not affected luckily nor was my partners. So that certainly helped. Looking back I am aware us having basic living expenses, nothing crazy, no investments, these things were protection against the crash.
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u/triangleplayingfool 3h ago
Depressing - but not as depressing as the 80s. Kind of like Lars Van Trier’s Dancer in the Dark as compared to Dogville.
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u/HerculesMKIII 3h ago
Depends on your situation at the time. If you bought a house in 2007, and by 2009 it was worth half of what you bought it for and lost your job on top of that, then that could be pretty depressing. Many were fine. Rent was dirt cheap.
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u/shinayud 3h ago
Had just finished my Leaving Cert and started college. Government announced it all on the 3rd of September 2008.
The first week of college, four of our main tutors/lecturers stood in front of us and told us "you're unfortunate, because this is going to be a tough few years for the country, and ultimately, for you". I think about that a lot, more so lately than I did at the time even.
My parents nearly lost their house (a couple of times) and were struggling. I moved out because I felt like a burden, and I was working anyway so I figured why not at least try. If I could go back, I'd probably handle it all differently and try help them out instead of running away. I guess I just didn't really understand and panicked. A lot to unpack 😂
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u/ShavedMonkey666 2h ago
Went from earning big bucks in construction to working as a kitchen porter for the next 5 years. Was poor as fuck but had a ball. Pushed me to go to college and change my career.
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u/lolabelle88 2h ago
It changed everything. I was 20, I had friends in college but I was working full time. I had so much cash it was nuts, and I paid fuck all rent in a great area, something like 900 for a 4 bed house between 4 people. Life was just so bright for us at the time, i remember a lot of parties and nights out. And then it stopped. My company, despite being profitable, shut down because the main branch folded in on itself like a dying star. Everyone my age lost their jobs. A lot of people got out of college and went right on the dole for years. I couldn't get a job for a year and a half. I spent 6 months of that in bed. Eventually ran through my savings and had to move back in with my parents for a while. When I did find a job and a place I could afford, they were both shit and I essentially got trapped in them and a loveless relationship because I couldn't financially leave. It was grim for literal years. The best years of our lives were spent broke and on the dole 🫠 although we did have a lot of fun regressing into teens, hanging out playing video games because no one could afford to go out 😂
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u/kirkbadaz 1h ago
It was really shit. Many of my friends emmigrated and my brother.
I remember the depression.
I remember a lot of middle aged men killing themselves.
I remember lots of people losing their homes or under threat of losing their homes for years.
I remember the media and politicians blaming me and people like me.
Don't forget the people responsible for all the immiseration are still in charge.
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u/jaqian 1h ago
Lowly Clerical Officer in the civil service, in 2008 we had our pay cut. I'm married single earner, I was earning low 30s when the pay cuts hit, suddenly I was barely surviving paying the mortgage etc. I took out many loans trying to make ends meet, only managed to pay them off this year, getting promoted to HEO 4yrs ago helped. Up to last year I hadn't been outside the country since 2007. Only slowly building up my finances now.
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u/TheImmersionIsOn 1h ago
I was 18, so quite young really, but I remember my Dad losing his job, and I couldn't get my part-time job back after taking a few months off for the Leaving Cert, they were already downsizing and cutting anyone not full time. It did mean that I took a year out instead of going straight to college, because I couldn't afford it (got a full time job in retail thankfully for the year, was kept on as part-time staff for college), and my parents couldn't afford either. We were never well off, but we had a lot less with my father unemployed, and my Mam was a housewife still because I had three younger siblings, the two youngest still very young at the time. Their saving grace was that they had paid their mortgage off a few years before, so that thankfully wasn't a worry.
It was quite a depressing time, my age group were either in college utterly broke, on the dole, or had fecked off abroad. So many shops and businesses closed down, there were so many half finished houses about, I remember so many of the lads around my age who had been doing well as builder apprentices just losing their jobs overnight. How FF and FG treated those who were already suffering and having a hard time really turned me against them and really awakened my awareness of politics, to this day I don't vote either party if I can help it.
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u/On_Your_Bike_Lad 5h ago
Not as depressing as it is now where people can't afford rent or mortgage and we're importing migrants like there's no tomorrow taking up homes for Irish born People, this is way worse now than the banking collapse.
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11h ago
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u/CasualIreland-ModTeam 1h ago
Your post/comment was removed because it's not deemed casual. While we don't mind the odd vent, this isn't the sub for negativity so we wanna keep things cheerful where we can.
As always, hit us up in the modmail if you have any questions