ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Postal orders of Ireland

Postal orders are a form of payment that people used to use in Ireland. They were like a special type of money that you could use to pay for things or send money to someone else.

When someone wanted to buy a postal order, they would go to a post office and ask for one. The person at the post office would give them a special piece of paper that had a certain value on it, like €5 or €10. This piece of paper was like a little ticket that showed how much money the person had paid.

Once the person had the postal order, they could use it almost like cash. They could give it to a shopkeeper when they wanted to buy something, and the shopkeeper would take it as payment. Or, they could put it in an envelope and send it to someone else, kind of like sending money in the mail.

Postal orders were a really useful way for people to make sure their money was safe when they needed to send it somewhere. It was more secure than sending cash in the mail because if the postal order got lost, the person who found it couldn't use it unless they were the original recipient.

But over time, postal orders became less popular as people started using other forms of payment, like credit cards or online banking. Nowadays, you won't see postal orders as much, but they were an important part of Ireland's history in how people used to pay for things and send money to each other.