We can all put a hardship spin on most things (like the "cattle boat" to england like you were being shipped to Auschwitz) but both you and I started work with the realistic expectation that we could buy a home.
You didn't get a year out in Australia but you are getting a retirement in Spain and wherever else you feel like going. You may have contributed to a pension all your life but if it is a State pension then you certainly didn't come anywhere close to paying for it. The parents who funded the three months in Australia or the USA? Their kids are now paying for their retirement, and will be paying for it long after those parents are dead, so it turns out it was a good investment.
That free ride into relatively good employment in Ireland, that doesn't include the ability to buy a home and probably won't include a State pension. Maybe it's not as good as you think.
I took the above from a longer post by Purple.
1.(a) I presume you never boarded a train to catch the "cattle" boat in Rosslare in the 1960's. Both were an experience. Neither was the experience of 1st Class on a UAE Airbus. I'd love to see a modern day teenager being able to time-travel back and experience travel from Ireland to the UK which is nothing like travel today.
(b) You eventually arrived in the UK and travelled onto your destination. Mostly the Irish arrived in London, hoped to find accommodation after spending some time with relations. If you hadn't a drink problem before you left Ireland the chances were you'd have drink problems in the UK. Believe me the publicity pertaining to No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish was true.
(c) Many Irish worked on the "lump" system. You got paid on completion of the job which usually ran into weeks. There was a good chance that you'd would be ripped off too and got much less than you thought you would. It wasn't only the dishonest Brits that ripped us off, it was dishonest Irish.
You're right, we weren't headed to Auschwitz, I never said we were. But, I would advise that if you ever thank God or whoever or whatever you believe in be grateful that you were on none of those cattle trains or cattle boats many of us endured before we arrived where we were largely not wanted.
2. We spend several months per year in Spain. We bought our own apartment there. We are entitled to travel there as much as we wish. We worked for what we bought and paid honest earned money. We rent it out (and before you ask, we are 100% tax complicit). You might remember for years the government advertised that the pension funds would come under pressure eventually and to make plans for a good retirement, Ours was to buy in Spain. I stated on another thread on this forum the folly of our investment - it did not work out, unfortunately. But, I didn't go cap-in-hand to anybody asking for a bail-out. We took it on the chin. And if we feel like spending a few week in Spain next month,, we bloody well will.
3. A good investment paying for our kids to spend a year out in Australia - No bloody way; it fostered silver-spooning into their future. (My opinion, and I'm sticking by it).