Memories of the Celtic Tiger

[Bandage]

Reeling in the years

I was working in Anglo Irish Bank in 2006 and I’ve vague recollections in Ryder Cup week of it being all hands to the pump printing, binding and packing (as opposed to shredding and binning) these brochures for distribution in the corporate tents. It wasn’t just the junior/young types like me at the time; there were all manner of senior folk involved on the production line. Presume it was to entice a little bit of property investment but I can’t quite recall.

I (coincidentally?) worked in several financial institutions that subsequently collapsed in disgrace, but this was one of my weird memories of the Celtic Tiger era. I can’t recall if it was because of an IT outage or maybe the brochure template was late coming back from the designer or whatever the fuck, but everyone & I mean everyone & not just junior staff, working til all hours in Anglo the night before the 2006 Ryder Cup started. Printers whirring, pages being organised, into the machines to bind them & stick covers on them. Loads of separate little production lines in operation as these brochures needed to be ready to hand out to the VIPs flying in for the golf that weekend. Presumably to advertise property investment & other wealth management opportunities. The brochures were just one item going into the “party bags” for these invited guests/men-children…Anglo golf balls, umbrellas, ball markers, pens & all that type of shite too. I remember loading all this stuff out into the lifts & down to the lobby to be collected by a few courier vans. The gifts would have been waiting for guests at their breakfast seat in the Anglo corporate tent at The K Club. Woosie did a superb job that weekend, it has to be said.