The old saying “Beef Is To Ireland – As Oil Is To Texas” but we never seemed to have enough leather for children’s shoes, even into the 1960s. (Temple Bar, Dublin, corner of Essex Street and Parliament street – where the Porter House is now, 1943. Church in background across Grattan bridge is gone)

14 comments

1. The rare aul times, for some……..

2. I have never heard that expression before. What other gold nuggets have I missed, I wonder!

   We really were a better place when we were poor.

   Just ignore all the abuse, and such.

3. we were right next to a richer state which would pay better for leather. ironically one of the few good consequences from the trade war was cheaper shoes from the fact we could export to the uk

4. Since when has the difference between the “have” and the “have nots” been about if there was enough to go around.

   You reckon people who can’t put food on the table today is because there isn’t enough food to go around?

5. That lad in the front row, second left has a seriously muscular set of pins on him.

6. The fathers always had enough for the pub somehow 

7. Their poor feet must have been freezing

8. I reckon there was plenty in Texas who couldnt afford oil.

9. The same reasons the Church is gone are the reasons children get to wear shoes now.

10. Ireland was in many ways where Britain figured out it’s trade strategy for the empire. Agricultural production was encouraged for export and industrialization discouraged by tariffs. Industry was encouraged in England and the finished goods exported again.

    Leather was just one example of this – and even then there were plenty of barefoot kids in England also – so it was both a social classes issue on top of the geographic / economic rules.

11. Was there many tannery’s in the country?

    I know of the massive one in Portlaw.

12. 1943? Was leather rationed?

    My mother was 10years old in 1943, and one of a family of 10, she would talk about how you had to be quick in morning if you wanted boots for school and I don’t think they bothered with them at all in the Summer.

13. Didn’t know kids went without shoes as late as the 40s. God, a pair of flip flops or sandals would have cost barely anything.

14. My grandmother was born in Ireland. She told me a story when she was young she wore her shoes to bed because she feared one of her 12 siblings would steal them. She was the only one to have a leather pair of shoes, she needed the shoes because her gait was off as a child, the local Catholic Church donated the shoes to her because her family couldn’t afford shoes, period.