The local shop has yet to sell black market tea, or to accept my emergency ration coupons for gritty flour or tobacco.  So is life today really so bad? I spent a drizzly morning in Nenagh talking to people who have lived through previous recessions in order to find out. 

"We had less in the 80s, but we were happier. We had a bit of land, grew our own - younger people have had it so easy, they'll have to make do with less". Some people said that as pensioners, with families reared, today's recession would not affect them as much as younger people with mountains of debt to pay off. Indeed 6 out of 10 people I talked to said today's recession was going to affect them less than they had been affected in the 80s. "It's a different country now, the country is better developed, with better roads, the country is in a better place."

However 6 out of ten also thought that today's recession was going to be as tough or worse than the recession in the 80s. "Our children and our grandchildren will be paying for this. Everything is more expensive now and the option to go abroad isn't available to the old."

To escape from the rain I ran to one of the town's many coffee shops. This reminded me of a story of a Nenagh man who had tasted coffee once, during the Emergency. It was so awful he had never drunk coffee since. The IMF may come, but they won't take away our cappuccino makers!

This blog post was compiled by Michael Wright, Managing Director of Home Instead Senior Care in Tipperary. You can contact Michael on Michael.Wright@hisc.ie.