Changes in Waterford..

Driving your car right to the door of Darrers (Now McDonalds & Argos,half price toy sales upstairs in the afternoon of christmas eve). Woolworths where Pennys is. The other entry to Sullys on a road that is now the main thoroughfare through city square. On that same road to the right, next to where Dunnes stands now, where Burger King etc.. is, Woolies having its closing down sale (then huge excavations to build City Square and being able to peek through the hoardings and see the foundations of the old viking city).

Huge cranes at Bell lines on the quay (now at the new port), the new bridge being built and it being on the news that they dropped one of its pillars in the river by mistake.

The car stand / Poleberry flooding badly, the bridge at poleberry being built in the early 80's with a temporary wooden thing up where the current bridge is now. All the land where Tesco / New Cinema is being wasteland full of high weeds with a dust path the locals used and a stream where the Hyundai Garage is that you had to jump (either by foot, or on BMX !) Gravelly carpark at railway square with a bum living in a caravan.....

Rubys being a department store and then Pot Black snooker hall upstairs and I think a restaurant probably La Palma downstairs... Harneys bakery actually being open :-( A sweet shop or two just opposite it, with Jackpot amusement arcade being right next to it where muldoons is today. Next to that again Sinnots was the main music shop in the early 80's and also a top video shop upstairs... And a chipper next to that. The old pub, Davysomethings where Masons is (previously Junction/Club LA). The Beefy King on the corner, cross lane video being just behind it where the Jolly Barber is now ! I think Cross lane was at one point down near where carphone warehouse is now, for that matter I think there was a sinnotts there too... mid eighties. A road going through Michael Street, a foot high kerb outside where sinnotts / the pound shop are now... the original pound shop near where the book centre is now, most popular shop in town ! The Chuck Wagon where Kavagnaghs is next to A-wear which used to do mens clothes upstairs. Hundreds of bikes locked up outside the library and around the side of the cathedral. Hundreds of bikes all over the road for that matter, armada's of them going into the various schools in the mornings... The Manor St John with their black jumpers being one of them, next to where peigs is now.

O'Donoghues barbers on Patrick Street, the old Regina Cinema with its 3 screens, I remember number 2 was on the ground floor, with 3 up at the top of the stairs. A second hand tape shop in the early nineties at the size of Enterprise homecare, blitz I think it was called. The opening of the broad street centre, surely one of the biggest failures ever considering the perfect location, bewleys and KG discs remember them ? BPM now were the only ones that did well along with a fabric shop. BPM used to have a book with names of tapes with no cover they would sell you cheap in the early nineties, used to always head in for a look.

A car park at the back of the cathedral, where the hotel is now. Scholars bookstore for schoolbooks, the original bookcentre, a joke shop in georges court where Tony Roche is, in the early 80's. Teleport, worst computer shop ever. Finns ? Camera and Computer shop, initially near Bodega in the 80's but moved up opposite ballonatics, used to be a little tobacco / pipe shop there too. Finns was retro heaven. Until the late 90's they would still sell you a full price C64 game ! Hell I bet they would have sold you a full price commodore PET game, wonder what they did with their stock ? Also, anyone remember on the ground floor of the Kazbar which was almost a derilict building, a shabby video arcade known as FRED's in the eighties.

I remember the cannons at city hall being in the park. I remember before they built the adventure playground another swings/ slides / roundabouts / seesaws and other lethal apparatus being there on a tarmac'd piece of ground. I remember the cycling track being good enough to actually race on and doing just that before throwing the bikes down and heading onto the pitch in the middle for a game of footie.

I might be imagining it, but I could swear I remember parts of the waterside river being cleaned at the start of the nineties (didn't last that way for long) to show the brickwork that is under the sludge (apparently a section of that river is all bricked underneath where its course was altered to allow a road to be built or something like that.

Outside of town, I remember hillview being end of the line in that direction, well the industrial estate anyway. I remember no garages on the cork road. The entire of where woodies / PC world etc.... Superquinn being a marsh that my mates dad was thinking of buying and deciding against (this was the early nineties). I remember kids legging it to the dump at certain times of day because Milton Bradley were dumping a skip of incomplete games etc.. (which you could mix and match to make full games). I remember Ballybeg only going as far as Priority lawn. The original Ardkeen stores which we used to cross over 3 fields from Farran Park to get to. Farran Park being the last outpost until you got to Mount Pleasant. On the Dunmore road, a huge Ugly blue and white vintage bus bringing us out the road, the original Cove stores, the hospital being a bunch of prefabs before the new hospital was built, and for that matter the Infirmary still being a hospital and people going around with bright pink Save the infirmary stickers on their cars. Further out the Ballytruckle road I remember twomneys shop opposite ferndale. I remember too where the road split at Ballytruckle green you could go both directions, (early eighties), i.e the wall at the bottom of the Ursline was not there, and the road between the sacred heart church to the road leading to the Ursline Hill/Pearse park did not exist. Further out that road, the original big lumpy walls of the greyhound stadium which I scaled many a time to see Waterford utd play. Nothing existed after that, well after St Herblain / Avondale.

On the Dumore Road Viewmount was as far as it went, and we went Robbing Apples where the huge house is (now apartments) at Earlscourt which was all fields from there out.

Jeez, listen to me, I could go on for days, you'd swear I was 70 not 30.

Brilliant description Quigs Snr, you're making me all misty eyed. What about the video arcade in what is now the book centre when i was in mt sion we called it "The Gloss" (why i dont know).Was a haven for those of us on the duck!

Toymaster being where boots is now

And the Independent newspaper offices where SuperMacs on Red Square is now. It is getting so bad that if you blink you miss a building/shop being replaced. Another pub: Kavanagh's Pub on the Quay at the bus stop.

Regards...jmcc

Anyone rememebr Boyce's in Michael Street?

Richard Finn's Camera & COmputer shop originally in Arundel Lane where City Square is now....

Richard Finn's Camera & COmputer shop originally in Arundel Lane where City Square is now....

God i remember the original shop in arundel lane, when you walked in you had to go up some steps and you came to the big long counter on your right, then on your left you had the tellys setup with the various computers and consoles of the time, spent many a happy hour in there.

A story about Richard, i bought a commodore 64 game called red storm rising (not from him, from Teleport), and wasnt working full stop after getting a replacement from Teleport and that not working and fiddling with the c64 datacorder they advised me to send it back to Microprose in England (yeah i know was young and naive :eek: ), so i duly did and basically the game fell into a black hole at the company and i snail mailed them several times and rang them several times and got nowhere, so was speaking to richard about it and he said give him the details and hell see what he could do, about 4 days later i was in there, and he had a fully registered mail from microprose with a brand new copy of red storm rising and a grovelling letter from micorproses sales department waiting for me, that version of the game i got actually worked and I was forever grateful to him for getting it back for me

Shin

Freddie59 wrote:

Indeed I do. And what about City Cycles (next to the Blue Haven Pub) in O'Connell Street.

Could be my imagination but I think that building is still there with the old sign over the door.

Quigs Snr wrote:

City cycles is still there but not open for business anymore. Remember the auld lad there, sound as a pound he was. Always had something special out back he'd sell you for half nothing. His wife is still alive I see her around the place from time to time. Bought a couple of bikes in there in the late eighties.

Anyone else remember a bike shop opposite the gingerman in the late 80's?

I'd say it was more like early 80's.. but I do remember it but can't think of the name