Pick a decade to be a teenager in Ireland

losthorizon

I would love to have been in my very early 20s between 1967-1973 in California.

As it was I was a teenager in Ireland in the 80s - that was cool enough and i just listened to all that great alt 80s music and 60s psychedelic and love generation stuff.

krudler

I was born in 81 so dont remember much of the 80's apart from the later years. But the 90's for the most part rocked.

Decent cartoons, too many to mention but off the top of my head Earthworm Jim, The Tick, Animaniacs, Pinky and The Brain, Taz-Mania, Duck Tales, X-Men, Batman The Animated Series....

TV shows? The X-Files, The classic Simpsons episodes, Father Ted, Buffy, Twin Peaks, Friends, Fresh Prince, Freaks and Geeks, Ally McBeal, ER, Homicide:Life On The Street, Law and Order.

Music? The Prodigy, Blur, Oasis, REM, Pulp, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Deftones, Green Day, Faith No More, Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Massive Attack.

Movies? Jurassic Park, Goodfellas, Terminator 2, The Shawshank Redemption, Silence of The Lambs, The Lion King, Toy Story, Fight Club, The Matrix, Pulp Fiction, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Se7en, JFK, Boogie Nights, American History X, Out of Sight, Groundhog Day, Scream, LA Confidential, Schindler's List, Reservoir Dogs.

Video Games? Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, Goldeneye, Super Mario 64, Sonic The Hedgehog, Tekken 3, Doom Resident Evil, Super Metroid, Zelda III, Time Crisis, Daytona USA, Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid.

Not to mention the beginnings of the internet, a decent economy, better summers, a new millennium looming, and a generally positive outlook on life. Damn that was a good decade to be a teenager.

The current decade, apparently they're all riding like rabbits.

oppenheimer1

People are forgetting that Ireland was not America during earlier decades, and the likes of rock and roll, and the swinging sixties were alien to vast swaths of the country. Such liberalism would only have been seen in pockets in Dublin, perhaps around Trinity and UCD.

Ireland was and still is to a certain extent a very conservative country. In terms of prosperity the best decade to have been born in would have been the early to mid eighties. You would have seen free third level introduced, probably have parents who could find work and most likely would have been young enough to avoid getting caught up in the property mania. Maybe would havee been able to secure a good job after uni too without being forced to emigrate if you didn't want to.

losthorizon

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

People are forgetting that Ireland was not America during earlier decades, and the likes of rock and roll, and the swinging sixties were alien to vast swaths of the country. Such liberalism would only have been seen in pockets in Dublin, perhaps around Trinity and UCD.

Ireland was and still is to a certain extent a very conservative country. In terms of prosperity the best decade to have been born in would have been the early to mid eighties. You would have seen free third level introduced, probably have parents who could find work and most likely would have been young enough to avoid getting caught up in the property mania. Maybe would havee been able to secure a good job after uni too without being forced to emigrate if you didn't want to.

You are taking the piss!

freshpopcorn

I'd have to say the Noughties!

oppenheimer1

losthorizon wrote: »

You are taking the piss!

No. The mid to late nineties was a great time to be a teenager in Ireland and the early noughties a great time to be a student

Ilyana 2.0

Probably the 90s, I would have just loved the grunge era.

I'm 21 and while being a noughties teenager was great, the prospect of graduating from college in two years' time with little chance of employment here is just depressing.

SilverScreen

I was a teenager during the early to mid 00's and I wouldn't change that. I enjoyed the music, I enjoyed the fashion and I enjoyed the films that came out. I always had a part-time job, plenty of money and life was optimistic.

While the 60's, 70's and 80's might seem rosy to a lot of people I'm sure racism, sexism and homophobia were rife during those decades. Must have been the days alright...

shrewdness

seven_eleven wrote: »

Then when 2002/2003 came around, everything seemed to change. I dont know how to explain it, but everything became bloated and irritating.

Did you have a similar experience to Stan? :pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRSYhLn4RCI

Urquell

Is there such a thing as a good time to be a teenager ?

languagenerd

I was born in 91, so teenager in the 00s, student until recently. I think I would have liked to have been born just a few years earlier in terms of culture - to catch the start of the punk revival/grunge era in music and to have grown up without so much emphasis on the Internet. It genuinely worries me how much my generation rely on social networks and phones, even more so when I look at my younger cousins who are just total zombies when they have their smartphones in their hands. I think (could be wrong) that people were a bit more social a few years ago.

But I wouldn't like to go back too far - as a girl, I think Ireland in the 00s was a pretty good time and place to be a teenager. Experienced very little sexism growing up, girls were never considered inferior to boys in terms of jobs/school and we were always told to aim high. A couple decades earlier, women still had to leave their jobs in civil service when they got married and any unmarried woman/young girl who got pregnant was shunned. Glad I missed all that!

ArtSmart

the 20's

(2020 that is)

Pingi

00-06 were my teenage years and I wouldn't trade them

Clothes were massive baggy jeans made by Hobo or Road, tight tops, comfy skate shoes, key chains and metal ball necklaces

Music was Nu Metal, RAP and Pop punk, Movies were alright and I lived in part of Ireland that had broadband from 01. Who remembers FACEPARTY and Oceanfree chat?!

I had a part time job from 15 onward that gave me more than enough spends,

All my friends and I all thought we'd grow up to be able to pick and choose careers and have loads of money from looking at the young adults of the time....

ArtSmart

Superbus wrote: »

1950s, I'd love to fully experience being socially repressed by a hostile, all-powerful religious force and live in a cold, small cottage with no heating or electricity.

just wait another few years....


it's a-coming.

Lando Griffin

The 1910s cos Ireland was united and drugs were not illegal and everyone would have at least 12 siblings to play with.

Dick Masterson

I'd do anything to relive the '90s again.

Dick Masterson

Lando Griffin wrote: »

The 1910s cos Ireland was united and drugs were not illegal and everyone would have at least 12 siblings to play with.

United under British rule. I don't envy them to be fair.

markomuscle

Lando Griffin wrote: »

The 1910s cos Ireland was united and drugs were not illegal and everyone would have at least 12 siblings to play with.

why 1910's? would be the same any decade before that

Agricola

90s definitely. If you were hitting 16/17 in the mid to late 90s you were growing up at a time when the country was seeing some real prosperity for the first time. A whole generation of people had the chance to go to 3rd level following the removal of fees in 96.

(The whole "Oasis/Fr Ted/better weather/Internet before it took over our lives" was pretty great too)

DonkeyStyle \o/

I'd pick a decade somewhere in the distant future. Where school is replaced by some kind of virtual reality that keeps every subject interesting, lessons concise, so individually tailored and brain-tuned that you can complete a school day in less than an hour.

Sinfonia

I was a teenager from the late '90s to the mid-'00s.
The country had money, it was cheap to travel to other countries by air, transport and infrastructure in Dublin was better than it had been before, and we had the benefits of the internet without the possibility of stupid teenage hijinx being publicly broadcast on YouTube via a phone. Pretty good.

My sister's five years older and speaks well enough of the '90s, and for my folks it would've been the late '60s to mid-'70s; I'm sure they had a larf and whatnot, but they seem to speak of the country at the time as a bit grim.

K-9

From all I've read 60's Ireland was pretty grim, nothing like England and the Beatles, the Kinks etc.

The 90's weren't bad at all, jobs at home for the first time in decades, emigration less of a necessity, real boom times, it seemed it really was the start of something different. Naivety of youth yes but it was the real boom years. The property boom started about 95/96 but nobody had a clue how it would end up.

pharmaton

The 90's were brilliant.

Bozo Skeleton

Now. Technology, the internet, better and better games, it's way easier to have access to create and record music, edit photos etc.
In a way I'm glad social media wasn't around when I was a teenager, I'd be tagged in photos on Facebook in a right state.
We have access to music from the past at the click of a button. We don't have crap like the Catholic Church having The Power. I'd say now is the best time to be alive.
The kicker is global warming, over population, and wars over the planet's resources, but hey, you can't have it all. Where would you put it?

efb

1990's then I would have a kick as job!

Jester252

Perfect if you turned ten in 1995. You have no problem getting a summer job in the early 2000 and college would be must better due to the money flowing all over the place. Finish in 2006 (21-22) to get a full time job. Yet no enough time to buy a house before the market goes tits up. Hindsight is the best.

efb

efb wrote: »

1990's then I would have a kick as job!

like 13 in 1990, cos I was 10 in 1990

Faith+1

Jester252 wrote: »

Perfect if you turned ten in 1995. You have no problem getting a summer job in the early 2000 and college would be must better due to the money flowing all over the place. Finish in 2006 (21-22) to get a full time job. Yet no enough time to buy a house before the market goes tits up. Hindsight is the best.

That was me! Born January 1985 :cool:

Vicar in a tutu

60's ... but I'd be ancient now..