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THERE ARE PLENTY of things to worry about these days – recession, unemployment, money…
But what about those small things that the younger generation today no longer has to worry about, the things we used to take for granted that we just had to do?
Inspired by this Buzzfeed article, we’ve come up with some Ireland-specific things that young people don’t have to worry about today, but which we sort of miss in a strange way.
Leaving the immersion on
Need a wash? Then why not turn on your handy electric shower and avail of hot water at any time of the day. Simples.
Rewind to 10 years ago however, and it would be a different story. You’d have to put on the immersion at 6am, wait an hour, pray the water didn’t go cold before your shampoo was all washed out, and then spend the day in school worrying that you hadn’t turned the immersion off and your mother was going to kill you for it. Kids have it so easy these days.
Taping songs off the radio
Want to find out what the latest releases are? Then you can go online on your phone and download new songs in less than a minute. Back when we were kids, we’d spend hours with our fingers hovering over the play and record buttons on our tape deck, waiting to catch the latest Smashing Pumpkins song on a C90 and hoping Dave Fanning didn’t talk over the outro (sorry, Dave).
Sunday mornings were spent watching The Beatbox, and weekday nights were for taping episodes of No Disco or Top Thirty Hits. Was it more enjoyable when you had to work for your music? The jury might be out on that one.
Winding tapes
On the subject of tapes, there was nothing – NOTHING, dear readers – worse than listening to your favourite cassette tape and suddenly discovering it had started to eat itself. You would gingerly pull it out of the player, use a pencil to rewind it and hope that it wouldn’t be forever marked, but alas, it would never be the same again. And don’t even start us on having to rewind VHS tapes. DVDs are most certainly an improvement.
Hand-me-downs
“Nice jumper, Maura!”
“Thanks, I got it off my older brother!”
That sort of imaginary conversation could have been played out on schoolyards around Ireland back in the day, when your uncle Fred’s shirt and sister Barbara’s skirt were handed down to become your ‘new’ outfit. Of course, no one really ever mentioned they were wearing hand-me-downs, but as this was before the hipster was invented, we didn’t know that oversized plaid shirts could sort of be cool.
Today, the abundance of cheap high street stores may raise ethical questions, but it does ensure a new generation of children grows up with new clothes in Ireland. Looking back at old photographs of ourselves as kids, we’re quite glad this is the case.
Carrying heavy school bags
Hands up if your school book weighed more than a stone! Kids today don’t all have to worry about that, as some schools have started supplying them with iPads to save their poor backs from the weight of Busy at Maths 2 and Soundings. What, they don’t use those books any more? Well I never…
Computer Games
Remember when computer games seemed like the most futuristic things on the planet… but they were sometimes unreliable, rarely saved things and had bad graphics?
We definitely don’t miss the days when you had to take the cartridge out of your Super Nintendo, blow on it and put it back in so it would unfreeze. Kids might be missing out on this trick, but we’re not sure it taught us anything anyway, except the virtue of patience.
Writing your favourite band’s name on your school bag
Why take a black marker to your schoolbag or journal when you can tell everyone what music you listen to Facebook and Twitter? Social networking means that you can now prove how ‘individual’ you are online, instead of telling the world through your clothing. Maybe it’s just us, but we miss the days of baggy jeans and scribbled-on canvas bags proclaiming ‘Kurt 4EVA’.
Watching TV with your parents
Maybe you’re the sort of person who likes watching television with your parents. If so, you’re in a tiny minority, because most teenagers would rather claw their eyes out than watch the Late Late Show with the parents who raised them, fed them, clothed them and paid for the television. Not too long ago, if you weren’t leaving the house and wanted to watch a spot of TV, there was one TV, two channels and by hell you weren’t the one choosing what was being watched.
Today’s kids don’t have to worry about this, as the advent of recordable TV, digital telly and online TV shows means that you can be away from your family members 24 hours a day if you wish, and you’ll never have to watch the Late Late if you don’t want to. (Sorry, Ryan).
Phoneboxes
Phoneboxes must seem like experimental art to some young people, especially now that many of them don’t actually contain any phones. But once upon a time, those boxes made out of shattered glass and warped metal were the chewing-gum-covered key to a lift home, a private conversation with a friend, or a first date.
They were sometimes disgusting, occasionally infuriating, and, once callcards came in, sort of futuristic – but by gosh they were a lifeline in those pre-mobile phone days.
Dial-up internet
Brriinngggbrrrrrrrhisssssbeepbeepbeep… Sorry, just reliving the joys of waiting for dial-up internet there. Yes, waiting. For internet. For more than 10 seconds. Not too long ago, before all this broadband this and high speed that, the internet was something you had to wait for… and wait for.
Plus, did we mention that while you were online checking your Hotmail account, no one else in your house could make any phone calls? Cue lots of family fighting, tears, and modems being switched off as you were trying to send Triona an important email about Jason in your maths tutorial class. Next time you check your Gmail inbox with one hand while swiping your Leap card with the other, spare a thought for those of us who spent years on dial-up. We’re still not over it.
Fancy Paper
If you’re thinking “fancy paper – just headed notepaper from hotels, yeah?” then it is probably safe to wager you weren’t a tweenage girl in the early 90s. Fancy paper was notepaper that came in many guises – coloured, white, scented, with designs, stamped, super-thin – and the most coveted sheets were never written on but swapped amongst friends. Becoming the owner of fancy paper that originally came from Japan was akin to filling a soccer sticker album in one go, and meant that you had serious connections.
Like homemade ‘perfume’ distilled from water and flower petals (and usually sold to neighbours for 5p), fancy paper gradually grew out of favour. We’re quite thankful for this one, actually.
What other things do Irish kids not have to worry about?
Gosh the pay is awful
Thats just for 38 hours a week…. They love the double bubble on the weekend..
Expenses that can be claimed are lovely though, I hear.
What expenses? You’re showing your true ignorance now gravytrain. I’d say you’d want to question your”source” and don’t just assume that what you hear is correct. Maybe try looking at gra website to see what the pay entails instead of trying to troll by using word like expenses..
Double bubble for the weekend? I think it’s 12 euro extra for a Saturday with an allowance for Sundays. They work 5 Sundays out of 10. I think I’d rather be with the family.
Aoife the salary is probably only half of the picture, there’s a list of allowances available to Gardai which would make a politician blush, it really is a long list and a lot of the payments are tax free. I’m not bashing Gards by the way because I have nothing but respect for the job they do and I would not do it myself so they deserve what ever they get. but the picture painted of Gardai not earning much money seems to be a misrepresentation to me.
Available but not possible to claim as a lot of them are posts so they don’t get anti social hours allowances and a lot aren’t available to Garda rank. New recruits unfortunately don’t even get the rent allowance which is core pay for every one else. It’s tough money starting off.
That’s basic pay. They get allowances on top of the basic. It’s still not great pay but the allowances are a big help I believe.
Teddington did you actually read what you just posted? Most of those allowances are *potential* and only apply if you’re stationed in the Aran Islands or an instructor or something.
Most Gardaí wouldn’t be eligible for the big ones, so your crusade to tar them all as money grabbers and worse than politicians is shameful.
Lads will you all calm down the information is all there and all I’m doing is highlighting it, once you’re out of Templemore you get a €4K tax free housing allowance, that’s a required €8K payrise to anyone but a Garda. Pay in every profession is poor at the start and increases as you go but if you add €8K to every pay scale on the list things look a lot better already and that’s only one of the allowances.
Teddington that’s €4,017 rent allowance they get every year. Equates to about 300 quid a month.
Since they do a fairly thankless job for quite bad would you really begrudge them something that already exists as a social welfare payment?
*for quite bad pay I meant there, sorry
Rock Stoneballs I don’t know why everyone is getting on my back here, I have no issues with Garda pay I just think that the figures that are constantly thrown about are a misrepresentation. €300 quid a month is not a bad little tax free payment every month, it’s a €600 increase to anyone else before tax so I was merely pointing out that the pay scales are a little bit misleading.
You might say you’re doing a very thankless job for very bad recompense then eh?
Teddington how much are you getting paid to sit on your hole and post on the journal :-)
Teddington. ….. The rent allowance is taxable. …. your info is wrong. And the article is about new recruits who don’t get this rent allowance.
All allowances are taxable. Fact
This link is 6 years old !! Dosent take into USC,pay cuts ,pension levy etc !!
On the street for under 24k a year? It’s definitely not a job you do for the money,
Not tax free dude… Paid weekly in core pay and has paye, usc, prsi, superannuation and pension levy deducted from as all allowances have… All those deductions add up to approximately 60%…. None of the allowances are tax free despite what you think
This is not tax free and not applicable to new entrants.
I believe that the rent allowance was introduced back when the gardai were fighting for a pay increase and the government didn’t want increases across the board. It is not tax free.
So after 19 years you get to a salary where you can start thinking about saving for a house deposit in Dublin. Think I’ll give it a miss thanks.
Forget the salary it really doesn’t even begin to paint the picture, there’s a list of allowances as long as your arm (many tax free) on top of it, I don’t know why they bother with this idiotic idea of paying them a low salary and then bouncing it up with a host of other payments, it might be because they can give them tax free if they’re allowances instead of salary.
@ Cardio … LOL !! Plenty of red thumbs from the Gardai no doubt , the longer we keep them occupied reading these comments the more time we give those who’re really take a stand for justice, Liberty and against corruption : IRISH WATER PROTESTORS
95% of garda allowances are taxable….your completely wrong.
No allowances in Garda are tax free. Fact
A Garda pulls over a farmer on the road and says do you realise your wife fell out on road side a mile back… Farmer says thank god i thought i was going deaf!
They work 6 days on then get 4 days off -the 6 days are 10 hour days. They used to have a cushy number with easy money and extra payments but not anymore. I’ve yet to meet a guard that actually likes their job! They’re all counting down the days til they can retire!!
If they’re not happy in their jobs they should move as should anyone else out there, life is too short to be miserable like that. I know quite a few Gardai and all of them love what they do but the unsocial hours obvsiously get at them a bit as they miss a lot of things because of it.
Are letters of endorsement from the Parish Priest and Local GAA club not requirements anymore?
Don’t forget you need a big pair of lugs.
No – but stereotypes need only apply…
Where are all those people who complained about the high wages earned by public and civil servants? Where are all those people who continuously whinged about the cushy numbers and the massive pensions? Now the same simpletons have a chance to apply for one of these much sought after positions, but all they do now is complain about low wages and poor conditions.
They will be applying in their droves for these positions, you just wait and see Tap, I would guess they’ll get north of 20k applications for these positions.
Expect a lot more lads hiding behind bus shelters with speed guns over the coming years.. All new recruits will be trained well in the revenue making scams from day one in Templemore..
@Cosmo. If you drive responsibly why would you worry about fines ? Maybe it’s not someone else’s fault ?
Taxi drivers!
So if someone break the law they might get caught.
What else exactly would you have a police force do you complete bell end
Considering the importance of the job the Gardai do its shocking how little they are being paid overall. €45k after 19 years of service is rubbish, after a couple of years in Dublin or London it’s fairly realistic for a recent graduate to be earning that.
Should have kept the salary to themselves or open applications to 5 yrs old and up, as 19 yrs service to earn a salary that you can’t pay a mortgage with is insane and then deal with the lowest form of humanity. Starting salary €40k with €75k after 21 yrs now that’d be an incentive.
To me it seems like this campaign is getting a lot of media attention. I don’t think they will have the numbers applying for it that they may have hoped
Great career. Best of luck to all the applicants who applied.
There is no rent allowances for new entrants, this was cut during the austerity measures, their salary and unsociable hours allowances were also reduced by 10%, all in the new Garda gets approximately £8,000 less. To add further insult their pensions are also significantly reduced
There is no rent allowances for new entrants, their unsociable hours were also cut, so on average they are down £8,000 euro
i was actually researching it and was humouring the idea of signing up on the website..then i seen the pay. I was unemployed at the time but luckily for a job in the mean time. A career change is only a good idea if you can afford to live after the decision
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