What would you have done?

[strangeirish]

Cheers . . . honest punter hands in lost takings to stunned pub owner


A LUCKY pub owner got the surprise of his life this week when a stranger walked in and placed the publican's entire weekend takings on the bar counter.

Sean Cunningham, the owner of Shenanigan's Bar in Bridge Street, Sligo, had not even realised the money was missing when the bag was put on the counter.

He was further stunned when the finder, Fintan Quigley, a 32-year-old company manager, would not even accept a reward.

"I was absolutely flabbergasted when this stranger came in and placed the bag of money on the counter. He wouldn't accept a reward," he said.

Mr Quigley found the cloth bag filled with €20 and €50 notes in the car park of Sligo General Hospital on Monday and set about finding the rightful owner.

The money, believed to have been in the region of several thousand euro, had been dropped in the car park by Trish Cunningham, Sean's wife, who had stopped off at the hospital on her way to lodge it in the bank.

Mr Quigley admitted the thought of keeping the cash had only crossed his mind for a fleeting moment. "I won't say I wasn't tempted. But the money wasn't mine," he said.

Instead he used a bank book in the bag to trace the money to Shenanigan's Bar. Mr Cunningham made a donation of €500 to Mr Quigley's favourite charity, Sligo Hospital Oncology Unit Trust.

From the indo


As for what I would have done,well to be fair, I would have went back to the pub and spent the loot there. :D

[Longfordian]

If I were the publican I'd be none too pleased with my other half..ffs she didn't even realise she'd dropped it, a big bag full of money..No chance of her thinking 'Oh where's that bag with thousands of euros in it gone?'.

[TheJamaicanP.M.]

I would have done the same. No point the likes of me holding onto money when we have plenty of dosh already.

[Babysis]

Thats a really nice story. Good to hear there are still some decent people kicking about. id have been tempted, but I couldnt have kept it - but id have probably taken a reward. :)

[blobbyblob]

I remember handing in £20 into a shop when i was about 7. Your one behind the counter said it was hers and game me a bottle of 7 Up as a reward - Always thought I was done.

Saying that, Im a firm believer in whats goes around, comes around. Youd get no luck for keeping it.

[Babysis]

Big time. Defo think Karma plays a big part, the whole what comes around goes around. Honesty is the best policy.

[stojkovic]

How does it work

If you find 20 euro do you keep it, but if you find 2000 euro you hand it in

OR

Is it the other way round.

[dahamsta]

If I were the publican I'd be none too pleased with my other half..ffs she didn't even realise she'd dropped it, a big bag full of money..No chance of her thinking 'Oh where's that bag with thousands of euros in it gone?'.Ordinarily, yes, but if she does the lodgement every night it would be easy to miss.

adam

[Longfordian]

She was on the way to the bank to lodge it, and dropped it. Bear in mind this was several thousand euros, a weekend's takings, she had to notice it. Maybe she did realise and panicked and decided not to tell her husband that she'd accidentally lost thousands of the pub's takings. Either way if it was me I'd be doing the lodgments myself from now on.

[liam88]

Big time. Defo think Karma plays a big part, the whole what comes around goes around. Honesty is the best policy.
Aye I like karma and I think it's true......doing a nice thigns also feels really good-you find a tenenr on the ground and you keep it but then it's gone in a week (or a night!) and you never think about it again but if you do soemthign good it sticks with ya; my bro found a handbag on the street with £10 and some cards in it. He took it down the police station and they traced it to an old lady who wrote a letter to my parents, my bro, and his headteacher.....also turns out she was the gran of one of the lads in his year who from then on was always ready to help him out with anything :D

[stojkovic]

was that in relation to what i said ye cheeky pup, if so i was just giving an example that i reckon is true.
No not at all.
It's human nature isnt it, find 20 euro, oh its not much I'll hand it in but if its 2000 euro, fcuk it, lets go the Canaries.

or the other way around

20 euro fcuking great who wants a drink, oh no 2000 euro it must be someones wages (incl hols money) well I'd better hand it in.

Either way its double standards - which way would you go ?

Reminds me of the time I met a couple in Bangkok who stopped a drunk businessman from being ripped off by the brazers. They 'minded' his wallet for him and put him in a taxi back to his hotel. They had full intentions of returning his wallet to him the next day until they opened it and found about 4000 dollars in it. Fcuk that, Koi Samui for two weeks and they legged it.

[drinkfeckarse]

I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be tempted but if there was a bank book and that inside the bag then I'd definately go about tracing it back, not too much hassle really and it'd be worth the feelgood factor at the end of it :)

If there was nothing to help you trace who it belonged to then I think I'd just sit tight with it for a few days and see if I heard any appeals for it or anything like that.

There's no way I'd hand a bag full of cash into the Police Station just like that, sure half of them or more corrupt the mafia. Straight into their pockets it would be :mad:

[Sinéad]

I found 100 pounds on Christmas Eve a few years ago and handed into the Customer Service desk in the Shopping Centre where I'd found it...

It turned out it was a girl's Christmas money she had got from her Dad.

I have to say I never comtemplated keeping it, and if you were in the situation, you probably would be the same!

Finding 30 or 40 euro won't break anyone's bank but after that - I'd hand it over!!

[sligoman]

Well if I had traced it back to him I would have kept it because he is rotten with money :D . His brother owns another big clothes shop in town so they would'nt really be stuck for cash ;) .

[sligoman]

Finding 30 or 40 euro won't break anyone's bank

Well if it belonged to a child then I'm sure it would

[Troy.McClure]

My girlfriend lost her wallet on Paddys night. She knew she had it earlier on in the night coz she bought drinks but it disappeared after. On Monday she got an email from a Croatian saying that he had it. She only had €50ish cash and her college id in it. He had gone on to the Trinity site, into the search engine, found her and emailed her to meet up to give it to her. Now that took effort! Of course I got the blame coz SHE lost it when she went to meet me :rolleyes: typical :D

[fosterdollar]

Aye I like karma and I think it's true......doing a nice thigns also feels really good-you find a tenenr on the ground and you keep it but then it's gone in a week (or a night!) and you never think about it again but if you do soemthign good it sticks with ya; my bro found a handbag on the street with £10 and some cards in it. He took it down the police station and they traced it to an old lady who wrote a letter to my parents, my bro, and his headteacher.....also turns out she was the gran of one of the lads in his year who from then on was always ready to help him out with anything :D

As much as this reads like a poxy chain e-mail (groan... :rolleyes: ), i have to agree with at least making an effort to trace the owner. Would you keep an item of clothing you found on the ground, a hub-cap, an umbrella? A good jacket/jumper could be worth hundreds of Euro yet most would either leave it so that it is clearly visible to the owner should they come back looking for it or even make efforts to source the owner. The whole money thing is tempting because it has a sort of generic value that you can materialise very quickly and easily. Still, FFS lads, why take it? Think of what it was like two seconds before you saw it. Chances are you weren't that badly off. If you had been looking the other way as you passed it you never would have noticed it and life would have been no different. The idea that the money probably (i say probably but should say definitely) means a lot too the owner should have nothing to do with keeping it - it's not your money - but it should be another reason to think twice about pocketing it. I can see no valid reason why anyone should pocket any amount of money found through the owner's misfortune which could end/only begin at that point depending on what your moral outlook is.

As a side point, one thing that really gets on my wick is Fooking baxtards robbing coats in pubs an nightclubs. Funny enough, i've noticed that this used happen way more while i was in college and going to student venues. Many times mates of mine have come out of a pub after going mad looking for there jacket to find some a$$hole wearing it outside!!! I wouldn;t mind but i cant unsderstand students robbing students - you'd think they'd know the value a student's favourite jacket has to them. Still happens now of course with the odd jacket but it's usually mobile phones and women's handbags.

[dahamsta]

Bear in mind this was several thousand euros, a weekend's takings, she had to notice it. You missed my point: If she did the lodgement every night it would be just one item on a checklist, part of a routine, something that's easy to miss. The amount of money has little bearing, unless it was substantially higher than the norm. I might add that unless you're somehow connected to the incident and have some information we're not aware of, the suggestion that she "had to notice it" and "decided not to tell" are not only ridiculously speculative, they're probably libellous too.

adam

[Jim Smith]

One of the sad aspects of this is that, with the exception of Liam88, nobody seems to trust the forces of law and order with returning the money - and I don't blame you.

Back in 1972 my brother (who was 6 at the time) found £40 and a pair of glasses - that was a lot of money then to anyone, let alone a 6 year old. My mother got him to hand it in to the police. The way things worked then was that if it went unclaimed for a year the person who found it got it. Now when the year was up and they had heard nothing they went back to the police station only to find that the money had been "claimed" a couple of weeks before the time was up - the glasses had not. When my mother questioned the likelihood of someone thanking that long to claim the money and then leaving their glasses they got very shirty with her and started to threaten her with defamation of character and the like. I know its hardly "South American style corruption" but I've never trusted them where money is concerned since.

[dahamsta]

Sure ye only have yereselves to blame Jim, the incident should have been reported immediately to the Garda Ombuds.... ah, I see where we might have a problem there...

adam

[Longfordian]

You missed my point: If she did the lodgement every night it would be just one item on a checklist, part of a routine, something that's easy to miss. The amount of money has little bearing, unless it was substantially higher than the norm. I might add that unless you're somehow connected to the incident and have some information we're not aware of, the suggestion that she "had to notice it" and "decided not to tell" are not only ridiculously speculative, they're probably libellous too.

adam

I've no connection to it ata ll. I'm just going off the article which specifically stated she was on the way to lodge the money to the bank when she stopped off at the hospital, a reasonable person would assume you'd be aware of the money. It doesn't really matter to me that much but I don't see it as libellous..speculative yes. I never said she decided not to tell I was merely putting forward a possible scenario which is fair comment in my opinion, also put forward by another poster above. Anyway, I'll shut up now, it wasn't something I was particularly bothered about anyway.

[ciaran76]

I think i would hand back the money too. But if it was a publicans money i would think twice as they make alot of money out of me anyway ! :D

But it is nice to hear stories like this. Good people still do exist it seems. :)

[dcfcsteve]

A group of us were over in Dublin in 2000 for one of the rugby internationals, on a Sunday night on the lash in Club M.

We parked ourselves down on one of the upstairs seats, and after a while realised there was a seriously suave video camera just lying next to us in the corner on one of the seats.

We booted it up, had a look through the photos on there, and recognised a girl who was downstairs in the club who'd been looking a bit distraught earlier.

When we rocked up to give her camera back to her she was absolutely amazed that we'd returned it, let alone managed to find out who she was from the images. She was a Yank at the end of a big trip around Ireland, and had been gutted as she thought she'd lost her video camera with all her photos and footage on it. Cue warm feeling in the heart all round...

As I get older I find myself believeing more and more in Karma. There's few things in life better than knowing you've done the right thing....

[Fair_play_boy]

Youd get no luck for keeping it.I feel the same.

[gustavo]

agree with ye totally on the Karma thing. If any of ye have seen the film "A Simple Plan" you will know how the bad luck of keeping large sums of money :)

[onenilgameover]

Many times mates of mine have come out of a pub after going mad looking for there jacket to find some a$$hole wearing it outside!!! I wouldn;t mind but i cant unsderstand students robbing students - you'd think they'd know the value a student's favourite jacket has to them. Still happens now of course with the odd jacket but it's usually mobile phones and women's handbags.

Thats happened to me a few times aswell. Not sure thats always stealing though as I've gone up to people to say on more than one ocasion I think You've taken the wrong coat there and they'd realize but others I reckon are just playin dumb to see if they can get anyway with it and fool themselves into thinkin they weren't actuallt robbing.

On the money front I think every effort should be made to get the money back to the owner. But thats quite difficult most of the time. Ye find a wallet with id in your grand but ye find cash on a shopping centre floor who ye gonna hand it in to (surely to someone thats gonna pocket it themselves) I found 60 quid once beside a till in a supermarket. I asked the girl to check her till to see if it was right. Her till was grand so I handed her my address and phone number and said if anyone had lost money they could call the number and they'd have the money back. I'd do the same if it was 60 or 6000. Wouldn't go near the police....