Is "the decimation of rural Ireland" overhyped

"Born in the bog", "culchies", "muckers", "cute-hooers" pulling strokes and doing deals.

While there are definitely people like that in and from rural Ireland they certainly don't represent the majority, who in actual fact are mostly honest hard working people who are undisguisable from their urban neighbours. The view you present has probably been exaggerated by John B Keane plays, rural dramas like Glenroe and sensationalist print and social media.

On a lighter note as a (mostly) former Tradesman I don't think there's any better feeling than giving a customer the price plus vat and they saying sur you'll do it for cash without the vat and they handing over 10 or 15 grand in cash when the job was done, good times long gone now as I'm in respectful employment now but you can be sure there's plenty at it still and more power, they've to feather the nest for when the lean times come around

They could use Travellers cheques.

If you live around the corner did you not know already that your local takeaway was cash only?

In the village I live in there are two takeaways, one cash only.

Both have their benefits, certain menu items are nicer in one than the other.

I know if I'm going to the cash only one I need cash.

The idea that someone would only use cashless businesses out of principal is a bit stupid, God help you if you needed to go and get something sometime in a shop that only took cash.

Same with "I don't use cash anymore". I rarely use cash anymore, but I usually have some on me just in case I have a situation where I need it.

I'm sure they'll survive, most chippers around here are cash only, I know of a couple of other businesses that are cash only and they're still in business after many years, if you're travelling around rural Ireland without cash then you'll be disappointed eventually

Just out of interest how did your mother get into online banking, etc?

I know of a few elderly people and some are simply afraid of technology, others don't want to change but some have tried to use technology, cards, etc and they simply can't get into it. They've tried help from family friends, computer classes, etc.

Well, picture this scenario then.

Supposing the person needed food, had no cash and the app on their watch/phone wasn't working? What do they do then? Cash always works.

And that's your choice. But I am not in favour of removing that choice from everyone.

Not to mention the farmers getting payments, it's great in fairness, keep it coming as it keeps lads from spending their cash, thanks Dublin and EU 😊

Why should it be dead?

Do you want everybody in the cities?

And then you'll complain about the cities being too full.

What are you, the reverse Khemer Rouge?

When I lived in the US, Bank of America had different types of bank accounts. The cheapest in terms of banking fees was the online option. You could withdraw from or deposit cheques or cash into ATMs that allow it (which is not every ATM there either) as often as you wanted BUT you were only allowed to avail of services in a bank branch twice a year. If you used it more, you would incur a charge. Over there it was also difficult to get by with just cash. Had always hear cash is King but that became shite, it was credit is King. I tried to rent a car with cash from multiple companies and none of them would take it. The excuse given was trust in the employees. They didn't want a bunch of cash from everyone renting cars sitting with employees throughout the day.

Hotels were another one. They want you to pay with card and they put the charge on the card for incidentals. I know a hotel here recently lost a case for refusing cash but there are good reasons to not want to accept cash, imo. Just even having a business account myself, it is a lot less effort from an accounting perspective to no deal with cash. The software from the likes of Stripe have things in such a way that filing returns is simple and quick.

4 of the 5 largest medical device companies in Ireland have presence outside Cork and Dublin. Dublin at least is also at bursting point, the room for growth is outside Dublin. The largest wind energy potential is off the west coast. Corrib Gas that is currently saving our arses for supply is off the west. That's not even mentioning the agriculture and tourism. Can you imagine what else the rest of the country could do if there was investment in decent infrastructure outside of Dublin :)

I was at a wedding recently where the couple had given their PayPal before hand if wanted to give them something. They still accepted envelopes and stuff but thought it was a bit odd.

I was at a wedding in Tip years ago. The couple asked on the invite for cash only (in the form of a little poem). This was before huge traveller style weddings with lots of cash was in vogue. We went along to the venue (which was awful with dreadful finger food & dips) only to find out we'd been hoodwinked. The couple had had a proper wedding in an amazing venue the day before which most people didn't know about. We found out half way through that we were at a money collection!

Yea there would be an obvious difference between one off housing in the countryside between Ireland and many other countries. What people mostly fail to mention though is that Ireland always had a culture of rural living, and towns and villages only came to us through the Vikings and Normans. Later on the English built up many plantation towns but they often lack the prettiness of the typical English equivalent due to the relative poverty the Irish were in compared to their "mainland" equivalent.

People think it's a failure of planning after our countries independence but you only have to travel north over the border and you'll see very little difference in terms of rural living, where there are similar level of one off houses in the country. Guess it's just in our nature to like that little bit of space around us.

Cash doesn't always work. No electricity, no cash register. A lot of places need network connectivity for the registers to work, too.

You also conveniently ignore that to get the cash in the first place, you need a powered, networked device (ATM) and banks can and do charge for cash withdrawals already.

You know what I love, when someone says "cash is king". How do they come up with wisdom like that?

It does if you've a good bit of cash in your house, anyone with a good bit saved could survive a long time if banks or atms have difficulties, no good if tills are out of course but either is card

Most tills intentionally block opening in a power cut and have been like this for decades. The plan for shops when the electricity goes down is to close due to tills not working. I worked on network tills for 10 years 20 years ago and a network going down was caluclated to be as uncommon as a power outage and the same plan if either happen which is close. Companies would not trust their staff to sell things without a till because staff don't know the prices (no longer on the items for sale) nor able to do maths. It is possible to operate without a till but they won't do it anymore unless it is some small independent store.

If a craft store can use electronic payments any shop that can't/won't is behind the times and will lose customers.

Wasn't aware that the majority of tills don't have a method of opening without power now.

It's been about 20 years in fairness since I was on the user end of a till and that that time, where I worked, power outages were relatively common at certain times of the year. The pricelist was on the door/printed by the till (was a licensed premises) and the maths weren't that difficult/batter calculator always on standby if needed.

Time's have changed in that case!

who here remembers the old pound note

hideous disgusting smelly things😬 can you imagine the amount of germs, viruses, diseases that were spread about with them paper rags yuk!

and the fact that pound coins weren't introduced till 1990 ffs! what a bally-go-backward country it was back then

Keeping a lot of cash in your home is really not a good idea.