Petrol pump politics is the backdrop to bigger crisis

My first ever summer job was working in a garage in Galway when I was 13. My primary role was to operate the filling machines and put petrol into the cars (the notion of self-service was at least a decade away).

When I wasn’t doing that, I was vacuuming new cars; waxing them to give them a ‘showroom sheen’ and doing all the odd jobs like sweeping the floors and helping out the mechanics if they needed somebody to steady a component or press the pedals to check the brake or the clutch.

It was the first time I ever encountered Swarfega – the green gelatinous liquid to wash oil and grease off your hands – and every time I have smelled it since, it has brought me back to that small garage with the young boisterous mechanics and an old-school boss who used every oath imaginable in the English language.

It was 1979. And when I started, Ireland was experiencing the second oil crisis of that decade.

There was an earlier oil crisis in 1973 and 1974, which had its beginnings in the Yom Kippur war, and led to oil shortages and a marked drop in living standards in Ireland. It contributed to rising inflation and put Ireland into a period of economic recessions that did not lift for three years.

Of course, it also resulted in long queues at petrol pumps. The Fine Gael-Labour coalition took a big political hit and never fully recovered from that blow, even though – objectively – the problem was outside their control.

Nevertheless. the local impacts of the global crisis had pinched very hard.

There was a very popular satirical TV programme at the time called ‘Hall’s Pictorial Weekly’. One of its characters was the Minister for Hardship, which was modelled very closely on then-Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite  HERE.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.