Fwd: EPISODE 445 IRISH STORIES: I WAS A POOR PAYMASTER (I NOW REALIZE 61 YEARS TO LATE)

EPISODE 445    IRISH SORIES:   I WAS A POOR PAYMASTER (I NOW REALIZE 61 YEARS LATER)

alan skeoch

Oct. 2021

FRIDAY WAS PAYDAY IN THE SHACK BEHIND THE KENNEDY STORE…WITH FREE CIGARETTES

 Being a paymaster was quite a shock on the Irish job. I hired a lot of people and was told by someone that an Irish pound a day

was the going wage for unskilled labour.  Seemed OK to the men.  As i now know the wage was

ridiculously low.  The real wage in Ireland in 1960 was $1.25 per hour (U.S)…about 6 to 7 pounds per day.

How did I not know?  IGNORANCE. I Used my own wage as a template.  I was being paid $400 a month…about $5 a day for skilled labour so the difference was

not really that great but my wage included room and board.  Not  luxury living. 

On bush jobs we worked 7 days a week, cooked

our own meals and slept in tents (enveloped in clouds of blood sucking insects).

 The Irish job was five days a week.  Luxury.

 

There seemed to be much unemployment in and around Bunmahon.

So I tried to hire as many men as I could.  There was a need for a large crew.

Three men doing Turam readings myself and Barney with console another man with lead coil 

and cable with 100 foot spacing

Two men to guard our grounding rods and motor

Three to four men as linecutters

Two men to patrol the base line and try to stop cattle from eating cable.

I suppose Barney must have seemed unnecessary to our boss in Canada. Explanation… “I need Barney to help me over the stone

and Gorse fence rows…and to watch for charging bulls or hungry boars.”  “I need him because it is impossible to run when in full

Turam harness.”  Now who could believe that?  Barney’s role

was also to protect me from tics as much as possible.  The cattle were infested with them making their noses look like

pin cushions.   Where did they get the tics?  From the tall grass and scrub bushes in the fence rows.  Barney was also

a buffer when confronted with angry farmers…many of whom wanted payment for damaged crops or stunned animals.

I do not know if anyone made such payments.

So these men earned their money.  I did not realize how small was their pay until I started to look at the cost of living and salaries

in Ireland in 1960.   

STATSTICS

The average family income in the 1960’s was around $5,800. The tax rate back then was 20%, and minimum wage was $1.25/hour. Bacon – 79¢ per lb. Bananas – 10¢ per lb.

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NO ONE ever said to me that they were underpaid.   High spirits prevailed as is easy to see in Kirwin’s pub  on a special evening.    In 1960 a pint of Guinness was around 20 pence…let’s say 50 cents Canadian.  A bottle of beer in Canada or USA was around 75 cents. 

So our employees could afford to buy about 3 pints of guinness spending their full wage.

To sweeten the wages I got in the habit of buying small packs of cigarettes and later chocolate.  About half of the population of Ireland smoked in 1960.   I did not know

that a 25 cent pack of Wild Woodbine cigarettes was the cheapest of smokes.  The pack looks nice

and no one refused/

IEP	USD
1 IEP	1.46744 USD
5 IEP	7.3372 USD
10 IEP	14.6744 USD
25 IEP	36.686 USD

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