Oh No they didn't.....Oh Yes they did!!!

I remember as a child going one year to the annual Christmas panto in the Gaiety Theatre… it was a big treat as we had never gone to it before then and we never went again after. You see my one parent family was financially poor, we lived in a council house and my mother was not in work for long periods of my childhood. So it is understandable that this “treat” was so cherished by me that to this day I remember standing outside waiting to go in feeling overjoyed and excited at what was to be the highlight of Christmas,

I distinctly remember looking at this fantastic building with its beautiful big doors and the all the lights and the smell when we finally got inside. I also remember looking at the other children around me, they looked different to me, they acted different, sounded different and one other thing, they had two parents with them. This was nothing new, growing up in Ireland with only one parent made you stand out, it also got you bullied everyday in a school where the headmaster once told me that I didn’t fit in here and would be better off somewhere else!

Getting back to the Panto, it was great and I loved every minute of it especially when my mother said I could get some sweets from the kiosk before we took our seats. It is only with hindsight that I now understand the look on her face when the kiosk attendant told her how much we owed for the sweets I picked out. The money was paid over and we took our sweets, which I shared with mum as she had decided not to buy her own sweets.

Shoes, coats and scarf’s was another thing I remember about the evening in the Gaiety, every other child seemed to have new shoes, new coats, new scarf’s, they looked so warm, so new. I had a navy anorak and a scarf that my mum or granny had knitted; it was very long and a bit scratchy.

To me, that day in the Gaiety was a special day, a day to remember, a treat once had but never forgotten but I wonder do the other children who attended on the magical evening remember it at all. Was it a special treat for them or was it an annual event. Did their parents save up to bring them to the Panto or did their daddy’s get the tickets for free…

In December 2008, Anglo Irish Bank spent €24,000 bringing customers and their children to the annual Christmas panto in the Gaiety Theatre. The bank was at that time taking its first steps down the road of the Government bank guarantee scheme. It was, as a business, bust, but did it stop the party…Oh No it didn’t… they also spent over spent €53,000 on hampers and wine for clients and a big old party in the Mansion House costing €175,000.
Now for those of you reading this three years on, I would ask you to ask yourself one question, one tiny little question, a yes or no answer will do…


Q: Do you believe this sort of activity has stopped within our banks?