Once upon a time, going into an Irish bank felt like being summoned before a small local tribunal.
You didn’t just stroll in and withdraw your own money. Not at all. You approached the counter carefully, with your little withdrawal slip filled in, hoping you hadn’t made a mistake in the date or written the amount in the wrong box.
Behind the glass sat the cashier—usually, a lady of a certain age. Twin set. Pearls. Glasses on a chain. Hair that had not moved since 1978. She had the authority of a headmistress, a parish secretary, and a disapproving aunt all rolled into one.
You handed over the slip.
She looked at it.
Then she looked at you.
“A hundred punt?”
Already you were in trouble.
“Yes,” you said weakly.
“And what would you be needing that for?”
This was the great thing about Irish banking. It came with financial supervision and moral judgement at no extra cost.
You could hardly say, “Pints, petrol and a weekend away I can’t afford.” So, you mumbled something vague.
“Just a few bits.”
“A few bits,” she repeated, as if writing it down for the guards.
Then came the final question.
“Does your mother know?”
That was banking then. You left with your money, but also with the uneasy feeling that you had disappointed the entire town.
Now, of course, that world is gone. The cashiers have vanished. The counters have vanished. The little pens chained to the desks have vanished. Even the desks have vanished.
The modern bank is basically a large empty room with good flooring. It looks less like a place that handles money and more like a venue waiting for a small concert.
At the far end of the hall, like two sacred objects in a chapel, stand the machines.
Usually, two of them.
Two machines for the whole town, half the countryside, and every poor soul trying to lodge a cheque from an aunt in America.
You walk in and immediately try not to make eye contact with the one remaining member of staff. They are not behind a counter, because counters are apparently offensive now. They are drifting around the floor with an iPad, looking helpful in a way that makes you nervous.
“Can I help you today?”
This is never as simple as it sounds.
Say yes, and before you know it, you are being asked about mortgages, savings plans, pensions, or whether you would like a financial review.
A financial review, as far as I can make out, is where someone half your age explains that you should have made better decisions in 1996.
So, you say, “No thanks, I’m grand,” and keep moving.
This is the modern version of the woman in the twin set. The pearls are gone, but the judgment remains. It has just been given a tablet.
Then you reach the far end of the hall and find the two queues.
One queue is for the single cashier desk, kept for people who have decided they will not be bullied by technology. Fair play to them. Their punishment, however, is to wait behind an elderly lady who is doing one small transaction and giving the young cashier the full history of her family since the Emergency.
“And then Michael went to Australia, but sure, he never really settled. His wife is lovely now, but she has notions…”
The young cashier nods politely, while clearly wondering if there is somewhere these people could be sent between ten and four on weekdays.
The other queue is for the machine.
This queue is no better.
At the front is a man who refuses to admit that the machine has beaten him. He is pressing buttons with the confidence of a man defusing a bomb after watching a YouTube video.
The machine beeps.
He leans in.
“What?”
The machine says nothing, because it is a machine, although you can almost hear it sighing.
He turns around to the queue.
“It’s asking me if I want a receipt.”
We all nod, because this is Ireland and nobody wants trouble.
He presses “No.”
The machine prints a receipt anyway.
Now he is annoyed.
“I said no!”
The rest of us stand there, silently ageing.
Eventually, your turn comes. You step forward. Insert card. Enter PIN. Choose service. Select amount. Confirm. Decline receipt. Receive receipt anyway. Take cash. Take card. Check pockets. Check again. Walk away suspiciously, as if the machine may call you back.
And there you are. You have done the work yourself.
You have worked as your own bank cashier and received no wages, no pension, no lunch break, and not even a little badge saying, “Employee of the Month”.
They should at least give you a staff discount on your own overdraft.
Then there are the opening hours.
Banks have online apps, facial recognition, contactless payments, fraud alerts, instant transfers, and machines that can do almost everything except ask how your children are.
But the opening hours remain somewhere around 1984.
They open after most people have gone to work. They close before most people can get there. And somehow, in the middle of it all, there is still a lunch break.
A lunch break!
For the machines, too, presumably.
I imagine them at one o’clock, slowly pulling themselves out of the wall like something from Transformers, stretching their metal arms and opening little Tupperware boxes in the empty banking hall.
One has egg sandwiches.
One has a flask of tea.
The statement machine is reading the Democrat.
No doubt they have a union. The Irish Banking Machines Association. Very strong on breaks. Totally opposed to Saturday work. One of them probably went off with stress after being asked to accept an envelope stuffed with punts found under the floorboards.
And all this is happening in the great age of contactless payment, where money no longer leaves you dramatically. It just disappears quietly.
You tap your card and €37.50 is gone.
You wave your phone and another €12.80 vanishes.
You buy a coffee, a sandwich and a bottle of water, and your banking app immediately sends you a notification, just to make sure you feel bad about yourself.
“You spent €18.40 at a petrol station.”
Yes. I know. I was there.
Cash, meanwhile, has become almost suspicious. Hand a €20 note to a young weekend worker and watch the panic.
They look at it like you’ve produced a bond certificate from the War of Independence.
The real drama starts when change is involved.
The bill is €14.60.
You hand over €20.60 to ease their pain.
Silence.
Their eyes widen.
Somewhere in the distance, a supervisor senses danger.
You try to help.
“That’s six euros back.”
They look at you as if you have just performed witchcraft.
Modern education has produced children who can edit videos, manage social media accounts, speak confidently about climate change and probably build a website before breakfast. But give them cash and ask for change, and you have created a mental health crisis.
And maybe that is why I miss the old bank cashier.
She may have judged you. She may have frightened you. She may have treated your own money as if it were on loan from your mother.
But at least she knew what she was doing.
The app does not know me. The machine does not care. The contactless terminal simply takes my money and moves on with its day.
The lady in the twin set would have looked over her glasses and said, “You’re taking out more cash? What are you at now?”
And strange as it sounds, I think I’d nearly welcome that. Because someday soon, I will be the old person just wanting someone to talk to.
