1 week Ago
How did your upbringing shape your relationship with money? I don’t have a relationship with money. It’s like the tide; it comes in and it goes out — and I’m too busy building sandcastles to care. Was there ever a time you felt broke? In the context of the deprivation experienced in developing countries and perpetual war zones, I’ve lived a life of excess and privilege.
In the mid-1980s Ireland had been battered by a gale force recession and Cork was in the eye of the storm. By 1985 half the town was unemployed, the other half redundant. Verolme dockyard had slung its hook and abandoned ship.
Ford and Dunlop had padlocked their gates, never to open again. The dockers clocked out and shouted last call at The Donkey’s Ears, and a string of early houses stacked their kegs by the quay wall for the last time. Cork sank.
A whole generation of school-leavers and graduates clawed over each other to get a seat on the next plane, boat, train or Slattery’s bus leaving town. We were striking out to start a new life in the squats, kips and bedsits of Brixton, Berlin, Boston and the Bronx. Have you ever seen anyone spend money in a way that shocked you? I’m regularly surprised by the rich living like there’s no tomorrow, spending what they haven’t got, and the poor living like there’s no today, spending what they’ll never have.
What’s the most expensive place you’ve ever been to? Dublin. And the rest of the country is rapidly catching up. What’s your biggest extravagance? It’s well documented in my latest book.
Expensive clothing has never been high in my hierarchy of needs. But every single Christmas for the past 50 years I have called over to my friend James at McCarthy’s on the Coal Quay and buy the same pair of size 10 red Doc Martens shoes. James always pokes a pair of socks or a tin of polish into my bag and he pushes a cash discount back into my fist.
Tradition is tradition, so I reluctantly accept his mate rate, because there’s no haggling on the Coal Quay when you’re an inside trader. Would you buy Irish property now? Oh, that’s a serious question? I’d suggest you’d be better off joining my good friend Martin Leahy outside Dáil Éireann every Thursday at midday for an hour to sing a verse of his song Everybody Needs A Home. This is Martin’s 118th week travelling up from Cork – rain or shine – to sing his song.
Do you use any of the digital banks? I don’t even use an iPhone. The toaster is the smartest device in this house. And even the toaster gets it wrong sometimes.
What was your worst ever job? I haven’t had a job since 1984. The recession of the 80s put paid to that. Back in the day, I did so many AnCo courses I guess I have a PhD from AnCo.
Since the demise of the “job for life”, I’ve been marching to the beat of my own drum and ploughing my own furrow..
