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Albert Reynolds

  • 21-08-2014 9:15am
    #1
    clohamon
    Registered Users Posts: 1,759 ✭✭✭


    A memory from youth is driving to the telephone box a mile away with my father and listening to him ‘book' a telephone call to the United States. We returned to the box at the appointed time, weighed down with coinage. It was about a pound a minute.
    Later, when I got my first job I remember the chance of making a successful ‘trunk’ call from Dublin to provincial Ireland was about 1 in 5.

    In a few short years in the Eighties, Albert Reynolds as Minister for Communications sorted out the phone system.

    RIP


Comments

  • #2
    bealtine
    Registered Users Posts: 4,047 ✭✭✭bealtine


    clohamon wrote: »
    A memory from youth is driving to the telephone box a mile away ...

    RIP

    Not really related but I thought it was funny, one of the Dubliners (might have been Ronnie Drew) worked in a telephone exchange in the good old days, in those days you had to have permission to make overseas calls.

    Anyway this evening a posh lady rings up to make an "overseas" call to the Irish Embassy in London, Ronnie answers the phone and she proceeds to try and make the call. Ronnie says well you need to book the call and need to get permission and so refuses to place the call.

    Anyway she says : "Do you know who I am I'm Minister X's wife"

    Ronnie says : "well do you know who I am?"

    She says "No"

    Ronnie says "good" and hangs up


  • #3
    nuac
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭nuac


    clohamon wrote: »
    A memory from youth is driving to the telephone box a mile away with my father and listening to him ‘book' a telephone call to the United States. We returned to the box at the appointed time, weighed down with coinage. It was about a pound a minute.
    Later, when I got my first job I remember the chance of making a successful ‘trunk’ call from Dublin to provincial Ireland was about 1 in 5.

    In a few short years in the Eighties, Albert Reynolds as Minister for Communications sorted out the phone system.

    RIP

    Yes the phone service was a nightmare in those days.

    In 1961 when starting in business it too six months to get a phone line despite being about 150 lines from the local phone exchange. Anybody further away from an exchange might have had to wait years.

    Automatic STD phone systems were only in some cities. It was the windy up local exchange system every where else. There were only a limted number of outside lines thru each exchange. To make a call to a number outside your town involved going on a waiting list. The operator rang you back when a line was available. You would be asked to limit your call to three minutes or whatever.

    A call to Dublin during peak times would be equivalent to Senior Hurling.

    We rang a relative in the States once a year. Parents would have booked the call hours ahead. Called would be worked thru a number of exchanges before getting to Dublin, then went to London and eventually to the States.

    Apart from the personal inconvenience of all this, it was very difficult for business people and tourists.

    Albert Reynolds pushed thru the modernisation of all this.


  • #4
    nuac
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭nuac


    bealtine wrote: »
    Not really related but I thought it was funny, one of the Dubliners (might have been Ronnie Drew) worked in a telephone exchange in the good old days, in those days you had to have permission to make overseas calls.

    Anyway this evening a posh lady rings up to make an "overseas" call to the Irish Embassy in London, Ronnie answers the phone and she proceeds to try and make the call. Ronnie says well you need to book the call and need to get permission and so refuses to place the call.

    Anyway she says : "Do you know who I am I'm Minister X's wife"

    Ronnie says : "well do you know who I am?"

    She says "No"

    Ronnie says "good" and hangs up

    Sure about alll that?

    1. There was a long delay in the fifties and sixties on overseas calls. Often they had to be booked ahead. Can't recall having to get permission to make them.

    2. Variations of this story abound, especially in the public service and the army. However any radio operator would be logged in for his/her duty at the exchange. In those days a Minister could easily find out the name of the operator, so Ronnie Drew would hardly have said that.


  • #5
    jbkenn
    Registered Users Posts: 919 ✭✭✭jbkenn


    Yes indeed, Albert Reynolds brought our telecommunications system into the 20th century, unfortunately, his successors in the 21st century have succeeded in keeping it there.


  • #6
    bealtine
    Registered Users Posts: 4,047 ✭✭✭bealtine


    nuac wrote: »
    Sure about alll that?

    1. There was a long delay in the fifties and sixties on overseas calls. Often they had to be booked ahead. Can't recall having to get permission to make them.

    2. Variations of this story abound, especially in the public service and the army. However any radio operator would be logged in for his/her duty at the exchange. In those days a Minister could easily find out the name of the operator, so Ronnie Drew would hardly have said that.

    Indeed but he himself told the story on the radio


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