The good old days.....

That reminds me of my first rust bucket. The mats were thrown out that summer to dry out the floor. I picking up my sister from work in a summer down pour. When I drove through a flood, the water sprayed up through a hole in the floor onto the back seat, hitting one of the three young lads we had given a lift to in the face. I looked back to see the fellow in the middle with water dripping off his glasses and down his face. It happened so fast and unexpectedly, I nearly crashed laughing so much.

True. And if you were an unmarried mother, often your own people threw you into what was effectively a prison run by religious.

Impossible to make comparisons with the 80s. Interest rates were 20percent. So very few big farmers buying land and building massive house's . Cubicle houses with cavity blocks and scrape it in to a open slurry pit. Feeding animals against the pit face.

The Irish were way more spareing. Nothing was wasted. Drank the milk straight from the tank. Killed your own pig/heifer. Grew your veg. Things were fixed a few times before being replaced.

We are all too soft now.

This is the most accurate post here to my memory

Surely CAP or subsidised food production would have some effect on cattle prices over the past 50 years?

does anyone foresee another agri golden age in ireland in coming decade? if we get wetter weather as a new normal you would imagine small farms in west and north west will be unviable. also maybe were in a 1912 era before next world war.

local 4 bed quality bungalow build early 70's fully complete for 4400, builder's family are still in business so says something about their reputation

late 70's we built similar but slightly smaller scale for a bit over 7k BUT I supplied all the timber for the roof (seasoned douglas fir which thankfully my ancestors had good mind to plant) & I had felled a couple of years previous , the chippies were complaining it was difficult to drive nails in ...and my self and a mate also done all the plumbing, .. sale of some excess timber bought most of the plumbing supplies

I bought a second hand caravan. Last year. 15k or so.

Old fella said it was very dear. His metric…..neighbour built a house before for 6k on the 70s😀😀

Because most were farming smaller acres with less cattle and more people dependent on the farm income.

It's not like these few cattle were expendable income to most. Definitely a case of rose tinted glasses for many, it may have been simpler times but definitely not easier.

A lot of them grew up back when money was tight (1920s - 1960s ) and spending on comfort didn't come into mind! Interest rates for deposits were good so money left in bank for rainy day. Social welfare wasn't as generous either so money saved rather than spent for later life.

That was the way it was done back then, finish off a room as you had the money. There's nothing spared in new houses nowadays and people then give out about the cost of a house. Some plumbing systems going in nowadays are crazy for a domestic house and costing serious money. I wouldn't like to be paying the maintenance of some of them.

The banks aren't helping either,they want a house finished completely now as well

Yeah, my brother recently got sign off with a second hand kitchen he got for free, no doors hung except WC, No wardrobes, fairly basic but liveable, as long as the house is valued for more than you owe on it that’s all that mattered, anyway back to the topic of this I definitely think we have it better today than previous generations, if people got off their arse instead of feeling like victims it would be a help, people had it much harder years ago

People putting in 40k fitted kitchens and there won't be much cooking in them...

I didn’t have to do upstairs on my house- did the underfloor heating and concrete slab though.

got block walls put up two years ago and hoping to do first fix electricity and slabbing next year.

my house is 1500 sq ft downstairs, was valued at €160k off plans about 6 years ago and built in a year for €206k ish to a high which spec. - air to water- all tiled floors- decent kitchen, triple glazed windows, coving.

then auctioneer wanted to value it at €250k. Ridiculous. Nobody would buy where I built unless it was priced right.

insurance is saying we wouldn’t build it for €300k now.

my brother was refused a mortgage because he wouldn’t tarmac the drive. I advised him to keep looking til he found a bank that would oblige. He did.