{"id":18942,"date":"2021-10-23T16:14:38","date_gmt":"2021-10-23T20:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=18942"},"modified":"2021-10-23T16:19:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-23T20:19:57","slug":"fwd-episode-445-irish-stories-i-was-a-poor-paymaster-i-now-realize-61-years-to-late-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=18942","title":{"rendered":"Fwd: EPISODE 445 IRISH STORIES: I WAS A POOR PAYMASTER (I NOW REALIZE 61 YEARS TO LATE)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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From: <\/b><\/span>ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com<\/a><\/a>>
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Subject: <\/b><\/span>Fwd: EPISODE 445 IRISH STORIES: I WAS A POOR PAYMASTER (I NOW REALIZE 61 YEARS TO LATE)<\/b>
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Date: <\/b><\/span>October 9, 2021 at 7:41:01 PM EDT
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To: <\/b><\/span>John Myers <jjcm1946@sympatico.ca<\/a><\/a>>, John Wardle <john.t.wardle@gmail.com<\/a><\/a>>, Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com<\/a><\/a>>, Marjorie Skeoch <marjorieskeoch@gmail.com<\/a><\/a>>, alan.skeoch1@gmail.com<\/a><\/a>
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Note:John Wardle\u2026tell me if you get this episode
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EPISODE 445    IRISH SORIES:   I WAS A POOR PAYMASTER (I NOW REALIZE 61 YEARS LATER)<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Oct. 2021<\/div>\n

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FRIDAY WAS PAYDAY IN THE SHACK BEHIND THE KENNEDY STORE\u2026WITH FREE CIGARETTES<\/div>\n

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 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<\/div>\n
was the going wage for unskilled labour.  Seemed OK to the men.  As i now know the wage was<\/div>\n
ridiculously low.  The real wage in Ireland in 1960 was $1.25 per hour (U.S)\u2026about 6 to 7 pounds per day.<\/div>\n

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How did I not know?  IGNORANCE. I Used my own wage as a template.  I was being paid $400 a month\u2026about $5 a day for skilled labour so the difference was<\/div>\n
not really that great but my wage included room and board.  Not  luxury living. <\/div>\n
On bush jobs we worked 7 days a week, cooked<\/div>\n
our own meals and slept in tents (enveloped in clouds of blood sucking insects).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 The Irish job was five days a week.  Luxury.
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There seemed to be much unemployment in and around Bunmahon.<\/div>\n
So I tried to hire as many men as I could.  There was a need for a large crew.<\/div>\n

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Three men doing Turam readings myself and Barney with console another man with lead coil <\/div>\n
and cable with 100 foot spacing<\/div>\n
Two men to guard our grounding rods and motor<\/div>\n
Three to four men as linecutters<\/div>\n
Two men to patrol the base line and try to stop cattle from eating cable.<\/div>\n

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I suppose Barney must have seemed unnecessary to our boss in Canada. Explanation… \u201cI need Barney to help me over the stone<\/div>\n
and Gorse fence rows\u2026and to watch for charging bulls or hungry boars.\u201d  \u201cI need him because it is impossible to run when in full<\/div>\n
Turam harness.\u201d  Now who could believe that?  Barney\u2019s role<\/div>\n
was also to protect me from tics as much as possible.  The cattle were infested with them making their noses look like<\/div>\n
pin cushions.   Where did they get the tics?  From the tall grass and scrub bushes in the fence rows.  Barney was also<\/div>\n
a buffer when confronted with angry farmers\u2026many of whom wanted payment for damaged crops or stunned animals.<\/div>\n
I do not know if anyone made such payments.<\/div>\n

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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<\/div>\n
in Ireland in 1960.   <\/div>\n

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STATSTICS<\/div>\n
The average family income in the 1960’s was<\/span> <\/span>around $5,800<\/b>. The tax rate back then was 20%, and minimum wage was $1.25\/hour. Bacon – 79\u00a2 per lb. Bananas – 10\u00a2 per lb.<\/span><\/div>\n

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NO ONE ever said to me that they were underpaid.   High spirits prevailed as is easy to see in Kirwin\u2019s pub  on a special evening.    In 1960 a pint of Guinness was around 20 pence\u2026let\u2019s say 50 cents Canadian.  A bottle of beer in Canada or USA was around 75 cents. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
So our employees could afford to buy about 3 pints of guinness spending their full wage.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
that a 25 cent pack of Wild Woodbine cigarettes was the cheapest of smokes.  The pack looks nice<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
and no one refused\/<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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IEP<\/th>\nUSD<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1 IEP<\/td>\n1.46744 USD<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5 IEP<\/td>\n7.3372 USD<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10 IEP<\/td>\n14.6744 USD<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
25 IEP<\/td>\n36.686 USD<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Begin forwarded message: From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com> Subject: Fwd: EPISODE 445 IRISH STORIES: I WAS A POOR PAYMASTER (I NOW REALIZE 61 YEARS TO LATE) Date: October 9, 2021 at 7:41:01 PM EDT To: John Myers <jjcm1946@sympatico.ca>, John Wardle <john.t.wardle@gmail.com>, Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>, Marjorie Skeoch <marjorieskeoch@gmail.com>, alan.skeoch1@gmail.com Note:John Wardle\u2026tell me if you get this episode […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}