Yesteryears: 50 years ago in Tipperary you could build a new 4-bed house for £4,250!

For our Yesteryears feature this week we take a big leap back in time, precisely 50 years, to our edition of November 25, 1972.
A half century seems like an eternity looking forward, but looking back, for those of us old enough, it can often seem like only yesterday.

The front page of The Nationalist then was an editorial-free zone, the entire page devoted to advertising, and today in reviewing it there is news aplenty, mostly nostalgic, in the adverts themselves.

In the then shorter run-up to Christmas, Toyland at Heatons had the prime spot, “offering you the largest selection of ideal Christmas gifts within the county.” Sadly, in recent times, Heatons has closed its doors.

Santa was coming to Clonmel on Saturday, December 2 that year for the “Big Switch On of Christmas Lights.” It is a sign of the times we live in now in 2022 that the provision of Christmas lights this year came up for much discussion at a recent Borough Council meeting with many traders who annually help towards the costs of the lights already under pressure to continue contributing.

Yesteryears: Rat invasion in Tipperary Town highlighted at council meeting

Oh where have they all gone now, those Clonmel businesses who were so prominent in 1972. Among the front page advertisers that week were McGraths Drapery of Gladstone Street; Fitzgerald/ Nash Furniture, Irishtown; Sheila’s Ladies Fashions in O’Connell Street; Michael Walsh, Builders, Wolfe Tone Street; Tara Electric, O’Connell Street; and the Ormonde Hotel in Gladstone Street where the ‘Munster Antique Fair’ was being held that week.

Today, also, the word inflation is being bandied about as if it was a new invention. But that week in 1972 the winner of the Christmas ‘Santa Letter’ draw would receive a tricycle valued £10.

And better still “Would You Believe It” Micky Walsh’s advert proclaimed - “You can still buy a three-bed house for £3,850 or a four-bed for £4,250. And the prefabricated concrete structure could be erected in 21 days.”

And also in the top news teaser to promote what was happening inside the paper it said “No regrets as Borstal is demolished” (i.e. the old gaol in Clonmel). Perhaps the people regret that decision today?