It’s always darkest just before the dawn.
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Great video there above. I didn’t realise things were quite so bad that time, it shocked me a bit that three quarters of the leaving cert class in the boys school in Ballinrobe said that their future lay abroad. And something like 47 of 51 of the girls leaving cert class said the same. Tough times rearing kids in rural Ireland to be shipped abroad and maybe never return again permanently. New York definitely seemed the place to go over and above London. They said there were twenty Irish pubs within half a mile of each other in the Bronx that time.
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I can imagine how good Brother Edward was at the career guidance.
Well Jimmy, would you join the priesthood?
No father.
Well fuck off to America then.
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Moving to Bainbridge or Woodlawn in the Bronx was like moving to an Irish town.Handy to get started but after a week or 2 everyone knew your buisness. I spent my first week in Woodlawn then headed to Queens.But yeah imagine rearing 8 kids and 6 of them had to emigrate. One lad stayed on the farm and the youngest was lucky enough to get a job out of school.
The quarter that were staying were farmers sons I suppose
Staying to help daddy in the farm and watching as all the girls your own age left in a hurry. Not good for the head
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A small farm in the West of Ireland wouldn’t support too many. $700 a week in New York in 89 was some money.About $17 an hour.
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Would it have cost a lot to pay your rent etc I suppose plenty fellas spent the whole of it
Rent back then was probably 200 a month and probably a lot less if you were in a house renting a room…A 6 pack of beer was $5.A dollar was worth 0.86p if you were sending home money.So that lad was making £560 punts a week over there.The cost of living over there was cheap enough at the time.Of course not everybody saved money but if they did…
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Great video. The lads playing handball at the start would have been exactly us at the time. Some turnaround that the landscape was completely different when we left school 7 or 8 years later.
In fairness I could be wrong but I’d say most of them were delighted to leave at that stage and they surely are now. If I was 50 and looking back on my life and I went to ucg and became a teacher or got a job in the civil service never leaving Ireland or else I spent ten years living in New York working on the buildings with all the experiences that involves and am now settled back home I know who I’d rather be.
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You couldnt get a job as a teacher i suppose?
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Landed with three this afternoon. I thought you said you worked in the civil service?
Clearly, you’re not getting the day the question paper comes in
Tour de force from the PREVIOUSLY maligned Taoiseach here now….
An absolutely great leader in full flow. There’s shades of Lemass about him…
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Someone needs to teach him to say the word science.
Fuck it lads, we’ll win the eurovision this year.
Perry has terrible legs
6 nations is in the bag
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ROD ROD ROD
My vote is finally going a long way