The postal strike was bitter. It was preceded by a strike in RTĂ and RTĂ being the be all and end all in the country at the time the Government rolled over and gave them a huge pay rise. The post office workers who were genuinely poorly paid said fuck this weâll have some of that so but the the Government dug in and wouldnât give an inch. It was a tough time. Families of post office workers literally had no food to put on the table.
But sure Gaybo had his pay rise out in Howth and Charlie was having his fun out in Abbeville.
I was in 4th or 5th class around the time of the Postal Strike. There was a lad in my class whose Dad was a postman. My Mother (in the spirit of socialism) used to give me extra sandwiches and biscuits in my lunch for the postmanâ s son. I (in the spirit of capitalism) used to give the postmanâs son the sandwiches and eat the biscuits myself.
There is a great book to be written about Haughey and a great film to be made. Whether anyone will have the bottle to do it is another matter. An evil genius who plied his wares in plain sight, but none of the establishment at the time called him out on it. There were veiled references to flawed pedigree and so on which ordinary joes might feel were references to the Arms Trial which a lot of people were ambivalent about anyway, but nobody was calling him out for being a crooked cunt. There was a myth that he had made his money out of his accounting business but the travails of the IFSC brigade here give the lie to that.
He created and fostered a culture of corruption in and around FF that demeaned the way business was carried on here for at least 30 years and probably longer. Thatâs his legacy and no-one called him out on it when it mattered.
People seemed to have been genuinely frightened of him. Successful businessmen who were not shrinking violets themselves had a fear of what he might do.
There was a hunger strike march in Kilmallock. A few of the local FCA lads turned up in the uniform with the tricolour and were fucked out of the FCA after. Those hunger striker posters in black and white used to scare the shit out of me. Especially Patsy OâHara.
I wasnât. You had to be fairly blasè about your career prospects to engage in Republican activity. I signed the petition in Waterford and I was nervous enough about doing that. The Special Branch wouldnât be long about letting your employer know that you were a republican troublemaker and not to be trusted. If you were spotted at any of these events you could say goodbye to a career in the army or the guards or the civil service.
