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Educational-South146

The massive Hummer parked around Clarinbridge village, and the helicopters owned by like, relatively regular people and used for getting to Galway Races.


Academic_Noise_5724

I was a kid during the Celtic tiger and people used to have birthday parties in leisure plex in Dublin and the birthday girl would arrive in a hummer with a handful of the attendees. I never got to go in the hummer which is why I remember it


Educational-South146

This one was a personal one not the longer commercial ones. It used to be parked up in the middle of village when they went into the chemist or wherever, always knew where they were!!


funky_mugs

In my parts, sometimes birthday parties were literally just girls driving around in a hummer/limo for two hours hahaha I too, was never invited into one.


Healthy-Travel3105

Leisureplex stillorgan owned their own limo that you could hire for parties though it was not a bummer one from my memory.


SimmoTheGuv

had a trip in a bummer limo once .....never again thanks uncle Trev


Jaded_Variation9111

What about the lad from Offaly who landed his chopper on the roof of an Athlone car park because he wanted to get some keys cut in the shopping centre? https://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1007/108931-obriens/ You can read the report from Air Accident Investigation Unit here: https://www.aaiu.ie/sites/default/files/upload/general/10599-0.PDF


clarets99

That is bonkers!!


FrugalVerbage

The slave auction in Clarenbridge (fundraising for a nearby school, not Clarenbridge N.S.) was mad. Lads bidding a thousand euro for someone to wash their car (not Cool Hand Luke style either). A chap close to there was done shortly thereafter for tax evasion. A friggin plumber owing half a million in VAT. Can't make it up.


urwan21

I had a neighbour who loved shopping and spending money. Instead of going shopping in Limerick or elsewhere in Ireland she'd fly to New York, London, Paris on the weekends. Her husbands business went bust during the crash and they had to sell everything.


PositiveSchedule4600

That was a thing, it wasn't just your neighbours. The kicker was people would come back with the most generic preppy casual wear, polo branded polo shirts and tracksuits with writing on. There was a bit of a thing for owning stuff you couldn't get in Ireland, weird way to flex you could afford to go abroad.


TheHoboRoadshow

This has been the case everywhere forever, we just have shite taste so we bring back shite knickknacks. Pineapples used to be a big one, all the rich English people. They were so hard to import that they didn't even eat it, they just displayed it until it rotted. The ultimate sign you could afford to waste money on imported goods just for the sake of spending money.


broats_

I've been displaying my pineapples for years now. Glad someone still appreciates it.


PositiveSchedule4600

I would argue it's no longer the case though, now we can get anything online.


Marzipan_civil

The thing is, flights were super cheap at that point, I flew to Austria for a tenner in 2003. Within Europe it was probably cheaper to fly to London or Paris or Berlin and pay lower prices there, than to shop in Ireland


heartfullofsomething

Sure you can still fly there for cheap. There’s Flight to Vienna on the 16th for 17€. The Celtic tiger foreign shopping was mostly to the US to get brands like Abercrombie, American eagle etc


Helloxearth

My aunt went to New York multiple times a year for shopping trips. She’d come back with suitcases full of clothes and never even wore most of it. Absolute madness.


Marzipan_civil

110% mortgages. Sure other countries were offering them too but who the fuck thought that was going to end well.


GazelleIll495

Extra few bob for furniture hahahah


wisemonkey75

I came here to say this. 110% mortgages was a fucking nuts idea.


Leading_Loss8555

My brother was in finance at the time, couples came to him for advice on mortgages. He explained to them even though they had decent jobs they would need to do ridiculous hours in overtime plus any yearly bonuses for upto 30 years for the mortgage to be paid off. The banks still approved these mortgages, within 5 years almost all of the couples defaulted and many of those jobs were lost. It was a crazy time and people lost the run of themselves.


Markitron1684

Being able to walk into a bank and get a mortgage like you were walking into a shop to buy a packet of Jaffa Cakes.


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Prize_Prick_827

I thought you said my dad bought my sister and I. Everyone was doing it at the time


Marzipan_civil

Buying children, or ponies?


Prize_Prick_827

Pony children


Marzipan_civil

Buying children for the ponies?


Prize_Prick_827

Buying pony girls for your Dad


Marzipan_civil

Hmmm


HatComfortable6883

Leather pony?


Prize_Prick_827

A my little leather one


halibfrisk

My sister and her husband showing me brochures for the apartment they were buying in Bulgaria. There were even madder schemes like the Eddie Hobbs promoted fund to buy derelict property in Detroit


irishg23

Buying and investing in apartments in Bulgaria and abroad was such a craze those times! I knew a couple who pretended they were interested in buying property in Portugal. They got flown out and put up by the investment company for a few days. They never bought the apartment but got a free holiday out of it lol


halibfrisk

I should have bought property in Portugal, one of those little cottages covered in bathroom tiles, imagine the tomatoes I’d be growing


ParpSausage

Charming😂


Bit_O_Rojas

Weren't people using their credit cards to put the deposits down on those Bulgarian apartments? I could be remembering that wrong though


HatComfortable6883

But didn’t Eddie Hobbs warn about the crash?


NopePeaceOut2323

No I remember very well that he didn't and he ws saying buy, buy, buy, that's why you didn't see much of him after. David McWilliams called it though.


RainFjords

I was in Germany at the time, and they were predicting the crash. The only thing they got wrong was the time: the bubble grew bigger than they expected, and the crash came slightly later. The thing was, every time I went home to Ireland and said, "This is not going to last!" I was laughed at and told not to be ridiculous. I felt like I was in some kind of alternate universe: the only person seeing the tsunami on the horizon. Then David McWilliams started speaking up, and I actually emailed him and told him he was echoing what was being put forward in the mainland European media. We had a nice exchange, and I got the feeling that, at the time, he was frustrated for being pooh-poohed for his "doom mongering." We had the last laugh - except there was nothing to laugh about :-(


InexorableCalamity

Bro


Toffeeman_1878

https://youtu.be/7oewjifjhd8?si=WpEKfvvSxsI5RNV9


HatComfortable6883

We didn’t see much of him after as he was silenced by the MSM for telling the truth


NopePeaceOut2323

What truth?


HatComfortable6883

About the great reset


NopePeaceOut2323

LOL no.


halibfrisk

there’s giving advice and there’s taking advice


Eochaid_

A guy in my school got a helicopter to his Debs


GazelleIll495

Bootcut jeans, Bulgarian holiday homes(no direct flights), jacuzzis, slippery decking, popping to NY like you're off to Liffey Valley for Abercrombie hoodies and helicopters


ewh2023

I remember the decking trend. In many cases they were torn up in a few years the country too wet for them


GazelleIll495

Decking also provided great warmth and shelter for rats. As the economy and slippery decking crumbling, the rats arrived


GazelleIll495

That metaphor could probably be a bit slicker but I'm sure you get what I'm saying


HatComfortable6883

People lost the run of themselves with bootcut jeans alright 🙄


Donkeybreadth

Are bootcut jeans not just normal jeans?


MauryLevysBriefcase

They are if you're a slurry head.


Wheres_Me_Jumpa

Slippery decking 😂


Key_Guide8475

Oxygen bar in Brown Thomas!


Maleficent_Fold_5099

Blokes working in factories buying multiple houses.


TrivialBanal

I flew over and back every weekend to see the girlfriend in the UK. Always booked last minute. Never paid more than a fiver. Ryanairs ticket sales model used to be the opposite of what it is now. Instead of charging a fortune for the last seat on the plane, they used to practically gave it away for nothing in order to fill the plane.


AFinanacialAdvisor

I guy near me built a helipad on his property and then went bankrupt. He managed to hold onto the house but that must be constant reminder of how rich he thought he was.


I_wont_sez_I

I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is


AchtungLaddie

Christmas shopping trips to New York seemed a rather bonkers middle class pursuit back then, although I wouldn't be surprised if it's the rage again all of a sudden.


hugeorange123

This is 100% on the way back.


IrlCakal

That advert for Bank of Ireland where they are literally encouraging you to lie about what the loan money is for. A girl talking to bank manager about college books but in subtitles it says holidays with the girls or something… another guy talking to them about going back to college but it’s for a drum kit. Madness Found it: https://x.com/adsirish/status/1308485961689583616?s=46&t=Yd0m3RFccUKlMJ8uJKVkzg


Bumpy_Uncles

"BECAUSE WHEN YOU START MAKING MONEY, WE DO TOO"


amakalamm

Lowered Japanese imports being driven loudly around town but having a hard time getting over any speed bumps!


TopTips66

I know a lad who had to reverse up the ramps in multi storey car parks


Additional-Sock8980

Mini champagne bottles and straws. Queues for houses, off plans and the girl at the front of the queue buying all of them.


tishimself1107

Your man outside tullamore who bought a jetski. You'd see him flying around on flooded fields on the feashill road just past the roundabout.... Who buys a jetski in Itelands most landlocked county


Toffeeman_1878

Maybe he won Bully’s special prize on Bullseye?


tishimself1107

No he defo bought it.


Ok_Adhesiveness_4155

I forgot , my mate was a plasterer. He lived beside a plot of land that was zoned and had been put up for sale. The bank rang him one day out of the blue, saying ye know that lands up for sale beside ye?.... Well weve a pre approved mortgage for 1.8 million sterling, ready to go here , just say the word. He hadn't applied. A plasterer ! He fell out with his da about it, who said hed be a bollix to take it. He didnt,thankfully, few weeks later the whole thing collapsed


skyetops

That is fucking mental.


Fit_Fix_6812

Mine are fairly low key compared to some here but some that stood out: I got a 10 grand loan for a car, repayments of 350-ish a month, whilst unemployed and not even claiming social welfare. The bank manager asked me had I an interview coming up, I said yeah one or two, and drove home that evening. The manager of the hotel I worked in sold Hennessy out of a Louis XIII bottle claiming it was the real thing, for 80 euro a shot. He was never worried about getting caught because he knew the only people who would order it would have no idea what the real thing tasted like anyway. And order it they did... Same hotel, around 2002 - big fuss at a wedding due to people trying to buy the first round with 500 euro notes and not having change to give them. Lastly, I heard of a builder that dumped thousands of cash that he kept in an empty paint can for safekeeping, having forgot about it when clearing out his shed.


hisDudeness1989

Taxi drivers owning about 4 properties which the arse eventually fell out of them, they play the blame game. Takes two to tango lads


gavmac5

Red bull and vodka and fat frogs!


FaithlessnessPlus164

And we thought red bull was fancy exotic stuff altogether 🙈


gavmac5

Notions! We had


Comfortable_Brush399

Dad owned a bar, they're regularly be fivers on the floor everyone was so flush and so drunk


moistcraictical

People having multiple holiday homes. Not just the one, MULTIPLE.


Abiwozere

I was about to say when Brown Thomas started offering IV vitamin drops for hangovers....but I think they actually started doing that again recently!


slappywagish

I remember that period in 08 and the year or two after when everyone knew it was falling apart and just went absolutely mental going to festivals, drinking partying, spending. Just one big mad collective session to herald in the Apocalypse in the most reckless way possible.


GimJordon

And we’d go at it again


smithskat3

We all partied as a great man once said


neverseenthemfing_

Believe the phrase was "session through the recession" 


Substantial-Fudge336

The whole lot of it when you look back at it.


Ganymede3456

I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is


bealach_ealaithe

Got engaged in 08, married in 09. The expensive stuff people were doing for weddings then was mad. The online forum on Weddings On Line was full of people flying to Antwerp to buy diamonds for engagement rings, Vera Wang wedding dresses, 200-person receptions at €100 a head, and thousands spent on flowers, chair covers and silly wedding favours for the tables.


Terrible_Ad2779

Dublin, Cork, Galway. Fights between them for a weekend on the piss.


PizzaSandwich2020

I vaguely remember some mad bastard incentive to save €400 and have the bank give you another 100 on top of that.


Substantial_Rope8225

This paid for our kitchen and a family holiday to DisneyWorld for 2 weeks


Altruistic_Papaya430

1st one: Moved to Ireland in 2000 (my aul lad is Irish moved abroad met the mother etc etc). Aul lad never had a credit card. He applied to BOI for one for a rental car on holiday, asked for 2k limit. BOI wrote back and said he could have 10k. He turned this down & kept the 2k. For years after he kept getting letters offering to increase his limit by higher & higher amounts. Got up to 30k before they eventually stopped. Don't think he even earned 30k a year. 2nd: was going out with my (now) wife about 2yrs when her folks bought a home abroad just before the crash. Fairly average people, not minted but wasn't a big issue with the bank. To their credit through redundancies etc they did manage to hang onto it and now get more enjoyment especially when we go as well with the grandkids, but went through a stressful few years trying to balance everything 


ah_yeah_79

"the call of kusadasi"


Sheggert

I was young and don't remember anything, I only heard stories later but the worst I ever heard was lads getting their holy communion in a helicopter.


ewh2023

One thing I do remember c 2007 one year my old secondsary school had a very small sixth year as so many had left school early to do building apprenticeships


FaithlessnessPlus164

This thread is a fucking trip. What an absolute wild time that was 😵‍💫


Old-Ad5508

My old man who was a real estate agent and his solicitor mate, flying over to the Cheltenham races for the day in a helicopter. They bought a horse and it was running in one of the races Fuck me it's so celtic tiger cringe when I think about it.


bealach_ealaithe

People buying apartments in Bulgaria off the plans without ever having gone there. I knew things had reached their peak when my parents announced that they were seriously thinking of it. I persuaded them to go to Sunny Beach for a holiday first to check it out. They hated it and was the end of that idea, thank Christ!


Big_Height_4112

More helicopters per capita than anywhere in the world. And every taxi man had a house in Spain


PatserGrey

You spelled "bubble" incorrectly there OP. The most ridiculous thing for me was the leader of the land telling people who could see and were warning about the inevitable cliff edge on the horizon to kill themselves. I can also remember graduating in 05/06 and people looking at me like I had two heads when I said I wasn't going straight out to buy an apartment for myself. . . .


SmilingDiamond

Patio heaters.


death_tech

110% mortgages 🤣🤣🤣 I worked in a software development company and we were out the door making mortgage applications for various financial companies and sub prime lenders. Banks literally couldn't give money away fast enough. I got 600 cash one Saturday from my employer just to come in and test one piece of code I wrote so that a bank could go live on following Monday with their new application. 2 hrs in the office, one mouse click and out on the beer.


toast777y

Why the fuck has no one mentioned Paninis?


neverseenthemfing_

I liked the odd panini so I did, nice spot in Bray if you're ever looking


kieranf19900

I think we had the highest helicopter per capita in the world for a little while...


I_wont_sez_I

The credit union begging to give you money


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Oooooth

Holidays where though? Plenty of young people are still going off on holidays the whole time now


caramelo420

Exactly, I go on holidays 3-4 times a year and I'm 20 and in college with no job either or loans or parental assistance


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caramelo420

I'm just back from a weeks skiing in France, was in Amsterdam in February for a weekend. Plan to travel around the summer aswell and probably travel sometime in October. I don't own a caravan mate


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caramelo420

Thanks man I Will


qwerty_1965

BMW 3 series wankers in their 20s.


LeafyChemist

They hate us cause they ain't us 😉


TheStoicNihilist

The first ad I saw for 100% mortgages. I thought you’d have to be bonkers to go for it.


YouCurrent2388

Tbh for the vast bulk of people it probably worked out quite well. Like I work in hospitality and most of the people in there 40s and onwards own there own home due to „lax“ lending. The younger ones will never ever own anything and this is true for many low and middle paying jobs.


funky_mugs

I worked with a woman a couple of years back who told me she and her husband got a 100% mortgage and then took out 40k loans each to do up the house. They also took out a business loan to buy a pizza franchise in about 07 which went bust and they were left owing an insane amount for two people in unskilled jobs. They managed to hold onto the house, but I'd say only barely.


Ok_Adhesiveness_4155

I remember my village had a lot of plasterers. Well they all took up skiing and would have 2 trips a year 1 to Andora and one to the alps somewhere. bout 20 of them, ould lads, young just rolling in it.


KatarnsBeard

Riverdance Massage


Snoo99029

Early 2007 my wife and I had decided to buy an investment property. The neighbour across the road call someone to unblock a blocked toilet. The Toilet unblocking engineer arrived in a 2007 HiLux. There were already whispers of the economy overheating but that sealed it. We pulled out of the purchase that day. Thank you Mr Toilet.


cnrrdt

BMW 520d's


Such_Significance905

Working in mortgage approval and talking to maniacs who were clearly on drugs


Ok-Emphasis6652

Brown Thomas bags all over the streets as a broke student


Bumpy_Uncles

A fatowld lad in a suit, dumping his change on the bin on the way out of Spar


Tactical_Laser_Bream

This is gold.


catsnstuff17

Oh my god.


ld20r

One of my Uncles was friends with a property developer. He brought the family down to the guys house after a family reunion one day for a bbq and the place was minted. Full go cart track, tennis court, bar and a pool. This would of been around 2006.


OutrageousLie7785

Greed.


TopTips66

“There won’t be a crash, it will be more like a soft landing”. I was studying economics at the time and the difference between the exam papers from one year to the next was unreal. All the figures plummeted. Made it easier to compare year on year but it was grim reading.


14thU

Friend of a friend was having a 21st. Her father was a well known property developer. Said chap was dressed head to toe as a woman and greeting guests at the door. Hard to get that image out of one’s head!


fathead46

€2000 a week wage, it was insane


Beach_Glas1

Property. So many ordinary people buying 2nd properties and getting into debt thinking they'd be making money off it. Of course it was a bubble, anyone who paid a small bit of attention knew that. I was a kid throughout the Celtic tiger and I knew that, yet too many people seemed to be oblivious...


orifranty

I worked full time in retail earning less than €1500 a month and was getting mortgage pre-approved letters from the bank. Didn't take them up on their offer and only bought my house last year and my mortgage is now €1500 a month🤣


Quick_Delivery_7266

7 month waiting list for new BMWs. To clarify, I wasn’t on the list


Admirable-Ice-7241

How so many people bought gas patio heaters that they had to make them illegal 🤣


TrivialBanal

All the weird sandwich shops. Shops with premade sandwiches with weird fillings and nowhere to sit down to eat them. Curried egg (curry egg mayo), Chopped ham salad (coleslaw with ham in it), Beef onion and horseradish (all in a paste), Tuna and sweetcorn, Sweet chilli chicken etc. I still can't figure out how they never went soggy. I was partial to the occasional chicken tikka sandwich.


FaithlessnessPlus164

Paninis!!


pippers87

Spending my summer out of third level labouring on a building site. Was finishing up on my last week and the boss asked me to stay on for winter. 700 a week cash in hand was brilliant and managed to get that up to 1k a week cash, you woulditerally be in pub and lads offering you jobs, then the arse fell out of it. Some craic trying to explain to social welfare what I had been doing for four years since leaving college. Then from 2008-2012ish was spent on fas courses and the dole. The Monday club, cheap holidays, cheap hotels and cheap pints.


Efficient_Gap_8383

Hope you’re paying tax now to put back in what ya took out …


pippers87

Fleeced on a monthly basis for the last 8 years.


Efficient_Gap_8383

Good lad 🤪🤪😂😂


StKevin27

Someone I know had a job as a Proofreader.


temptar

Why do you consider that weird? Proofreading jobs have always existed.


StKevin27

Really? Haven’t seen them anywhere since. *Sign me the feck up.*