What is the first big news story you remember seeing on TV?

freshpopcorn

I think one of the first big news stories I remember is the Omagh bombing. I also have a vague memory of seeing a lot of news about Veronica Guerin's car on the Naas Road.
So, what is the first big news story you remember seeing on TV?

DylanII

I think it would be 9/11 or in Irish format 11/9 ....

Ruu

These two stand our clearly for some reason.

Michael Stone running through a graveyard throwing bombs and returning gunfire during a Republican funeral in 1988.

The Waco cult compound siege. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege

40 seconds in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EdYKJ-fd-g

PickledLime

The Challenger space shuttle disaster, I would have been 3 and a bit years old.

And the capsizing of The Enterprise Of Free Herald just over a year later is burned into my brain.

HellboundIRL

The Oklahoma city bombing in 1995 sticks out for me.

kneemos

When that doctor (forget his name) was kidnapped back in the day and the cops were doing house to house searches all over the country,which was a bit strange and very time consuming.

Seany81

mandela released from prison 1990

Rothko

Princess Diana dying

sheikhnguyen

Late 80s something about armed guerrillas in the Congo on RTE. For quite a while I thought gorillas had guns and were killing people in the Congo.

Roose

OJ Simpson.

Galwayguy35

The fire in the Stardust nightclub would be the earliest one that I remember watching on the box.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

sheikhnguyen wrote: »

Late 80s something about armed guerrillas in the Congo on RTE. For quite a while I thought guerrillas Gorillas had guns and were killing people in the Congo.

I think that's what you were going for.

I used to think the Celitc Tiger was some species of wildcat that was native to Ireland. Instead it was some stupid economic bull****.

pockets3d

First one i remember is my grandfather explaining that the military of a country could shoot down planes that didn't have permission to use their airspace. I didn't really understand at the time so he turned on the news, and at the very moment there was a piece about some commercial airliner that was shot down, he then had to explain what a coincidence was to me. And for years i was amazed that a plane was shot down just as my grandfather explained why it happened. ....... years later i realised that the coincidence was only that it was on the news at the time and he was only explaining it to me cause it already happened, instead of the other way around !

kneemos

kneemos wrote: »

When that doctor (forget his name) was kidnapped back in the day and the cops were doing house to house searches all over the country,which was a bit strange and very time consuming.

Yikes! That was exactly what I was going to say! Earliest memory as a kid of a big news story was the IRA kidnapping, ransom, and siege of Doctor Tiede Herrema back in 1975.

One of the biggest employers in the country at the time, his factory had 1,400 workers which was almost unheard of in those days. He was rescued, understandably he was back on the next plane back to Holland, and the 1,400 workers brought their P45's down to the dole office.

Thanks a bunch, IRA. My eldest brother was working in that factory at the time. We needed that money for electricity and school books and groceries. You put a stop to that for us and 1400 other citizens of the free state.

Maybe next time you'll try kidnap someone who damages us, not helps us, eh?

K-9

The Hunger strikes would have been the first I was vaguely aware of, same with Garret vs. Charlie (who wasn't in 1981/82), though the Kidnap of Shergar was probably the first story I followed. Ethiopa was a massive worldwide storey a couple of years later.

efb

Enniskillen Bombing news flash

insignia33

Cant remember her name, but getting the feeling it is was Wormwood or something similar maybe.

Was a babysitter in the US and she shook the baby to death. Would have been early 90's.

EDIT: Just after googling, I have the name wrong, was thinking of Louise Woodward but looking at her photo shes not the one I remember. And definitely not the right year either. I wonder who it was I remember.

mikemac1

900 jobs lost in Digital in Galway

Devastated the area and was huge news in Ireland

Bad times

dfx-

My first memory is around the Dublin Millennium celebrations and coverage of same in 1987/88

Sunnyisland

Not actually a news story but Brazil with pele playing in the world cups in the early seventies always stick out for me.

vandriver

The air crash in Tenerife where nearly 600 people died (about 1977)

AtomicHorror

Challenger disaster in January 1986. I was 5 years old. My school teacher spent some time the next day explaining how the astronauts body parts littered the sea after the explosion. Odd guy, in retrospect.

seamus

Like Ruubot, Waco is probably the first big story I recall hearing of. Not that I understood what was going on except that there was a lot of shooting and a lot of people dead and a lot of people unhappy about it, and that David Koresh was an evil man who thought he was Jesus.

This is how stuff comes across to an 11 year old

Looking at wiki around the time, the only thing which stands out for me is Shoemaker-Levy in 1994 as there was a lot of buzz about that. I know the IRA called a ceasefire back then, but to a child it seemed as though the man on the news was always talking about Northern Ireland so it was impossible to distinguish the things which may have been important from the humdrum stuff.

I do remember things like the Ethiopian famine and the Berlin wall, but I was very young at the time, so I don't know how much I actually remember and how much I've pieced together by looking back at old video. I also remember things like Bush senior's election, but the actual seriousness of it was lost on me. Waco is the first report where I can remember comprehending that it was a big deal.

Frank Black

Probably Shergar being kidnapped.

Tornaxx

The disappearance of Phyllis Murphy in December 1979. What I remember in particular was the reconstruction of her movements for Garda Patrol, because on the day she disappeared, she had called into her brother who lived 5 doors up from me.

I was 6 at the time.

Andrewf20

1984 Brighton bombing & 1985 Manchester airport 737 fire.

Just thinking, ive very vague memories of the Beirut US embassy bombings in 1983. Feels like a million years ago.

keano_afc

I remember getting up going to school the morning after the Brighton bombing in 1984 and it being all over the news. I was 5. I remember my grandfather, an old school republican, repeatedly saying "they almost got her, that was hard luck".

tdv123

I think the IRA blowing up Bishopesgate. I remember thinking that we at war & how great our national army must be that the enemy (I wasn't sure who the enemy was) can't fire any rockets back at us.

Also the OJ Simpson trial. I was so happy & relived in the end that they didn't send an innocent man to jail.

foxinsox

1977 I think it was.

Elvis dying..

Crimson King

When Philip Cairns disappeared I remember the news stories and reconstructions and even the posters of him around the area. Very sad.

Bassfish

The Berlin Wall coming down, didn't get why people were making such a big deal about people knocking a wall.

stefan idiot jones

foxinsox wrote: »

1977 I think it was.

Elvis dying..

Same for me. Christ, I'm old.

IvyTheTerrible

Chernobyl and the Challenger disaster. They interrupted Bosco with a newsflash about Challenger.

Hoop66

As I said in another thread, the moon landings in 1969. I wasn't allowed to stay up for the actual landings as they were too late at night.

I remember sitting in front of the TV waiting for them to come back though. The TV showed pretty much nothing but grey sky and sea. I thought it was boring...

Sleepy

Freddie Mercury announcing he had AIDS and dying a couple of days later. I'd loved Queen since watching Live Aid all day with my dad (and was let stay up past my bedtime to see a bit more at the age of 5).

Though I remember the IRA kidnapping of John O'Grady in 1987 which was a lot earlier (as I'd have been around 7), it had less impact on me other than to make me realise that the IRA were "bad guys".

Dyr

Sleepy wrote: »

Though I remember the IRA kidnapping of John O'Grady in 1987 which was a lot earlier (as I'd have been around 7), it had less impact on me other than to make me realise that the IRA were "bad guys".

Except that was the INLA, obviously your hysteria about provos had established itself at an early age


Earliest I remember is probably the hunger strikes, the miners strike was a big one for me as a kid

SeaFields

Hillsborough disaster. Remember my dad sitting down to watch the match and it all unfolded. Scary stuff.

Richard Hillman

Probably World Cup 1990 and then the fall of the Soviet Union.

Sleepy

Bambi wrote: »

Except that was the INLA, obviously your hysteria about provos had established itself at an early age

As I pointed out, I was 7.

But then again, I've never really drawn much distinction between the various factions of Republican terrorists on this island. Peoples Front of Judea versus Judean People's Front etc.

K-9

Bambi wrote: »

Except that was the INLA, obviously your hysteria about provos had established itself at an early age


Earliest I remember is probably the hunger strikes, the miners strike was a big one for me as a kid

I can vaguely remember Brixton though it could have been another one, BBC News news just seemed to always be about strikes during that time!

JoeA3

The Zeebrugge ferry disaster sticks out in my earliest memories of "big news" for some reason...



http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/zeebrugge-disaster-25-years-on-752501

FloatingVoter

Fuzzy memories of John Paul I dying. I remember thinking the Ayatollah Khomeini was both the oldest man in the world and possibly Santa Claus. Reagan and JP2 getting shot are clear newsflash memories.

A.Partridge

stefan idiot jones wrote: »

Same for me. Christ, I'm old.

Not as old as I am.

The first big news item I remember seeing on TV was the assassination/funeral of JFK in 1963.

I was 4.

carol clery

For me it was probably the plane crash in Emerdale


Never Forget....

paddy147

Zig & Zag were going back to Planet Zog for good.

That was a very sad day for me,so it was.

SEPT 23 1989

Heysel May 85

gramar

I remember that dentist who was kidnapped by Dessie O' Hare and who had the tips of his little fingers chopped off. Dessie O' Hare was like the boogeyman back then for kids.

Jhcx

I'd Have to say the first one has to be 9/11.. just been reading about it ever since. today's the 12th anniversary.

SEPT 23 1989

gramar wrote: »

I remember that dentist who was kidnapped by Dessie O' Hare and who had the tips of his little fingers chopped off. Dessie O' Hare was like the boogeyman back then for kids.

He was hiding in every village in the country:D

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

I don't remember seeing the omagh bombing on tv but I remember that day surprisingly clearly. Off the top of my head 23rd of August? It was a Saturday, I was staying in my aunties house and we had gone shopping for my cousins cot, and when the radio in the car was turned on, it was all about the bombs. I was nine years old.

The one I remember on tv was 9-11. Was in 1st year, few days into secondary school. Came home about half three and put on the tv to catch a rerun of coronation street and there was just photos of the twin towers with smoke billowing out of them. I think it had just happened and we had no idea what was going on, there was nobody talking over the footage for ages.

donegal__road

foxinsox wrote: »

1977 I think it was.

Elvis dying..

me too