Shipping forecast enthusiasts 
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Wankers who go abroad and come back “telling” you how society is in those counties. Same cunts would have been thick as shit in school. Pretend posh.
Pretend Altar boys 
where else would you get it?
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I was an altar boy mate. It made mass less boring
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It’s the pretend ones I’m talking about mate,
I’d say it’s realistic to assume that the majority of non-Dublin posters here in their late 30s onwards were all altar boys.
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This would have been at the height of priest buggery as well. I wonder did any of the lads have a middle part
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It was a wonderful honour to participate in mass. To get the call to serve, it was a formative moment in my life.
I wasnt
Time off from school and a few quid in the paw for a funeral was it’s main appeal
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There is a lad I know whose nickname is benediction.
Every Monday the principal in the NS would come around to the classrooms calling out poor behaviour on the altar. This lad was challenged about why he hadn’t shown up for his scheduled role over the weekend.
“I slept it out Sir”
“It was benediction you fool at 5pm”
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I can only recall a few simpletons who were afraid to stand up to mammy
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Being welcomed into the inner sanctum, helping the priest with his robes, so many special memories.
I used to spend my time kicking ball or something. Traipsing off to mass to be treated like a skivvy wasnt on the agenda
Weddings were the real cash spinner but often at weekends
For a funeral you only needed the full compliment at the end for the incense and holding the cross so you could send youngest lads out and hang out in sacristy trying the altar wine, reading the paper and a few hours off school
We were the ones laughing on Christmas morning when we got a crisp fiver/tenner and a few Cadburys roses. I did it for about three years. Best one was doing the baskets in the big church. It would take a good ten minutes by the time you were back in your post.
Never got called up for a wedding. My cousin used to do every funeral going. I think it was because he was one of the few who’d get out of bed in time for Sunday 8am mass so he was in the good books.
All weddings and funerals were up in the Cathedral. Us Abbey boys got loads of sweets at Easter and Christmas and we were grateful for it. There wasn’t a hint or rumour of anything untoward. We were treated well. We hated those fucking mercenaries up in the Cathedral. None of them turned out good, all afflicted with terrible greed.
I’m going to have to agree with the Carkies here. Only the oddest of oddballs were altar boys back in the day.
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I served a wedding back around 1994 and received the grand total of £5 for my time.
The lad that served my wedding in 2017 received a cool €50 for his time.
Maybe we were too generous, or the family in 1994 were mean, or both, or that it is just inflation.
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