Your earliest current affairs/news memory?

Obviously we all remember sports events and music going way way back. I can just about remember Kate Bush hitting number 1 with Wuthering Heights when I was about 4 courtesy of my older siblings who played it non stop...and lots of Irish football in 81 and 82 for the same older siblings reason.

But what's your oldest news or (then) current affairs memory? I can very clearly remember Stardust in 1981 because we thought my brother, who was living in Artane and never missed a night out, was there. As it turned out, he was too drunk to go with friends of his who went there...and all made it out alive. Going back even further, I remember the Whiddy Island Disaster in January 79 as I live in South Kerry and it lit up the sky. But for some bizarre reason I can remember when Vietnam invaded Cambodia about a month before that, I can't say I knew Pol Pot was on the run, it was possibly the sight of tanks rolling through a city impressing a 4 year old...

Fr_Dougal

Member?

Clairvic

Omagh bombing.

Innocent people blown up while they went about their business.

mzungu

The Challenger disaster.

buried

Ronald Reagan dedicating the Columbia NASA rocket ship launch to the Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan. Worked out well. Can't wait to see what the new lad will do.

Pherekydes

Kennedy's visit.

TresGats

Seeing DeValera lying in state , I would have been 4.
I just remember long queues and everyone being very upset.

FortySeven

Piper alpha was the first I took interest in but I remember the Falklands.

lertsnim

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Member?

I member

Mongfinder General

The Brighton bomb.

marienbad

The Vietnam war nightly on the news with Charles Mitchell and reported as if we were fighting it complete with US casualty lists and the number of Viet Cong killed . It really was bizarre looking back on it

Cortina_MK_IV

Last of the U.S troops leaving Vietnam in 1973. Think my da would have been having one of his rants makes it stick in my mind.

miezekatze

Probably the chernobyl disaster, I think we weren't allowed to play outside for a bit or eat stuff from the garden.

"They think it's all over, it is now!"

_Whimsical_

The Hillsborough disaster. I was playing with toys on the floor with a neighbours kid while her dad watched it unfold on TV. We were way too young to have any idea what was going on but I remember knowing it was bad.

mansize

The first time we did this thread

uch

When Elvis died, was everywhere, I was about 7, the picture in the evening Press is stuck in me head

cdeb

The Townsend Thoresen disaster I think. Remember drawing a picture of it, weirdly.

FortySeven

FortySeven wrote: »

Piper alpha was the first I took interest in but I remember the Falklands.

Yeah. I was much older than when I saw Whiddy Island, 14 when Piper Alpha blew up...but it sticks in the mind, possibly because of Whiddy and the whole oil explosion thing. It was a few months after the Kings Cross fire too afair...another one where we waited for a sibling to phone home, not as nervous as the Stardust but had a sister in Central London at the time...

The flying mouse

I remember when the :troubles: broke out in Derry and the marches been attacked by the police.

Also remember the first man on the moon and looking up to see could I see him.

Vaguely remember Vietnam .

Nomis21

I was living in England, and just ten years old when I was watching my favourite TV programme on Friday nights called 'Take Your Pick'. It was a TV quiz show that had been running for years and hosted by a presenter called 'Michael Miles':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irg29je8G8k


Half way through the show, without warning, the screen went blank for several minutes and eventually an ashen face presenter appeared on screen saying that President Kennedy had been shot but that there was no further news. Both TV stations (There was only BBC 1 and ITV then) cancelled all programmes for the rest of the night, just making announcements when they received news from Dallas via the first ever launched TV satellite called 'Telstar'.

BettePorter

Ben dunne being kidnapped by the IRA in 1981. I was 6 and thought dunnes was just a local shop and a particular guy that stacked the shelves there was him! After his release id see the guy and think oh hes ok now. Ironically the same guy STILL works there so he probably deserves to own the place!

Maggie Thatcher by a long shot! She was the only person on tv who was hated by all the adults. Consistently. Thatcher and black flags everywhere.

"Thatcher, Thatcher, throw her up and catch her!" as was the nursery rhyme in school when I was but a gasúr.

Honourable mention to Big Ian when it came to riling us with soundbytes. "We say never, never, never!". Current affairs was so much more entertaining in those days (not forgetting the actors doing Gerry Adams' voice).

jackinthemix94

9/11 would be mine, but barely.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

I have a vague recollection of Brian Keenan being released from captivity. That was 1990 so I was only 5. Not sure how I remember it tbh, but I do!

cdeb

Deleted User wrote: »

"Thatcher, Thatcher, throw her up and catch her!" as was the nursery rhyme in school when I was but a gasúr.

Ha! Remember that. Though we used to do it putting ketchup on the burgers on Friday evenings for dinner. "Here's Maggie Thatcher, throw her up and catch her" - then put the bun lid on, mash the ketchup in good and proper - "Squish squash, squish squash, here's Maggie Thatcher."

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Maggie Thatcher by a long shot! She was the only person on tv who was hated by all the adults. Consistently. Thatcher and black flags everywhere.

"Thatcher, Thatcher, throw her up and catch her!" as was the nursery rhyme in school when I was but a gasúr.

Honourable mention to Big Ian when it came to riling us with soundbytes. "We say never, never, never!". Current affairs was so much more entertaining in those days (not forgetting the actors doing Gerry Adams' voice).

I remember singing...

Oh Maggie Thatcher you can't match her
She's the darlin of them all
She's the curse of the Irish nation
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil...
...forgotten lyrics...
If I ever catch poor Maggie I'd shoot her up the hole...

Edit, after googling we must have had a version of this song...

http://youtu.be/ZJh0m0E7Ozg

return guide

monasterevin siege

BettePorter

BettePorter wrote: »

Ben dunne being kidnapped by the IRA in 1981. I was 6 and thought dunnes was just a local shop and a particular guy that stacked the shelves there was him! After his release id see the guy and think oh hes ok now. Ironically the same guy STILL works there so he probably deserves to own the place!

Speaking of which, Ben Dunne - yes, the same one of Ben Dunne Gyms - high as a kite on cocaine outside the window on the 17th storey of a hotel in Florida as a hooker tried to plámás him into coming back inside, all covered live on US tv by one of those tv traffic helicopters.

That was some 9pm TV News in Ireland that night!

Larbre34

I clearly remember the Stardust fire on the news and also the Falklands conflict, age 4/5

uch

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

The Hillsborough disaster. I was playing with toys on the floor with a neighbours kid while her dad watched it unfold on TV. We were way too young to have any idea what was going on but I remember knowing it was bad.

I remember watching the BIG Match when this happened, we didn't see many live matches at the time, but because this was a big game it was televised in Ireland, when it started I thought it was just a pitch invasion, how wrong I was, ended up watching bodies being put in ambulances, fuking shocking viewing, the kids with their bodies pressed against the fence, and the next morning, the sun blaming the fans, now I'm a long way from an english football supporter but this was very sad

return guide

return guide wrote: »

monasterevin siege

I was stopped in a car for that! Not that I remember it, but my parents were travelling down from Dublin to Kerry with a load of kids hanging out of the car, and yours truly was the 18 month old baby of the family who didn't get the significance of events...

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater wrote: »

I have a vague recollection of Brian Keenan being released from captivity. That was 1990 so I was only 5. Not sure how I remember it tbh, but I do!

Yeah, I think Haughey hyjacked that too (3 years after hyjacking Stephen Roche's Tour de France victory).

Scorpion Sting

The death of Princess Diana when I was 7. I remember being in a supermarket with my mother and someone was talking to her about it and then I asked her innocently: "Will that be on the news do you think?". Quite unaware of the goings on in the world as a 7-year-old I was haha.

anewme

1975. Dr Tiede Herrema was kidnapped by the IRA (Eddie Gallagher & Marian Coyle), I remember being enthralled by it and watching the RTE news anxiously. I as terrified of the IRA.

I was in High Infants in school and we used to do a thing daily called "our news" where you had to write something (3 lines of childish scrawl) and draw a picture.

It was stuff like "my sister got a new Goldfish" " we went to visit our Granny'" I Remember putting updates about Dr. Herrema until he was liberated (following a siege after 36 days from Monasterevin of all places)

The teacher gave me a letter to bring home for my mum requesting she came to see her. She told my mum she was astounded a 5 year old had done this(it was in class so no adult help) how could a five year old even spell Dr. Tiede Herrema.

On the 40th Anniversary in 2015 I read an update on Dr Herema, who I was happy to read has had a long happy life together with his wife Elisabeth. (He is now nearly 96) He said he survived by keeping his captors calm and using survival skills honed in the second world war.

uch

uch wrote: »

I remember watching the BIG Match when this happened, we didn't see many live matches at the time, but because this was a big game it was televised in Ireland, when it started I thought it was just a pitch invasion, how wrong I was, ended up watching bodies being put in ambulances, fuking shocking viewing, the kids with their bodies pressed against the fence, and the next morning, the sun blaming the fans, now I'm a long way from an english football supporter but this was very sad

Hillsborough was not the first news story I remember...but possibly the first I had to try not to cry to...and it still upsets me as one of the worst news stories I remember. It was the whole way it unfolded in front of our eyes...as Heysel did, but in a much quieter and disbelieving way...how could so many people die silently while tv cameras rolled and we all waited impatiently for a football match to start...

foggy_lad

Whiddy Island explosion.

padd b1975

Jack Lynch resigning as leader of FF.

LaChatteGitane

The first moon landing (unless that was a conspiracy):pac:

uch

You've hit the nail on the head Conor, Heysel didn't have any English dead afaik, so it wasn't news worthy to them, but we got it all in Ireland, but I think Hillborough brought it home to them, what football tragedies were

bodice ripper

You are all really old, or really young.

Except for the person who said Challenger, and me.

colm_mcm

The earliest I can remember is the massacre and displacement of the Kurds by Salam Hussein around 1991. Never heard the term refugee before.

uch

bodice ripper wrote: »

You are all really old, or really young.

Except for the person who said Challenger, and me.

I was working on a site when Challenger happened, so I'm not young

GBX

The Zeebrugge ferry capsizing.

Dennis Taylor and his massive glasses playing that really long snooker match against that frosty-faced red lad, and beating him to win some "world" championship. I never stayed up as late as that before (we had no tv growing up so we were stuck in a relative's house as my auld lad wanted to watch it and it just went on and on.)

"Hurricane Higgins" threatening to shoot Dennis Taylor for something or other (probably for smiling all the time) and "Tornado Thornton" just for having a catchy name.

LordSutch

John Cravens news round + Reginald Bosanquet & Sandi Gall on ITN News @ Ten.

foggy_lad

I also remember the 1976 bank strike and petrol shortages in early 70s

dd972

Warrenpoint / Mountbatten

John Lennon shooting.

batistuta9

Cortina_MK_IV wrote: »

Last of the U.S troops leaving Vietnam in 1973. Think my da would have been having one of his rants makes it stick in my mind.

He'd be giving you a good telling off, it was 75

indioblack

foggy_lad wrote: »

I also remember the 1976 bank strike and petrol shortages in early 70s

There was one year in the seventies, I recall, when the petrol tanker drivers went on strike. I was on holiday in Cork and was given petrol coupons to use.
My cousin's husband told me, "You don't need them, go to the garage by the bridge in town."
"All the garages in town are shut today, " I replied.
"No", he said, "go to the house behind the garage and ask them".
"For what", says I.
"PETROL!"
I did and got a full tank, no problem.
The rest of my holiday driving was like that - never used the coupons.

130Kph

anewme wrote: »

1975. Dr Tiede Herrema was kidnapped by the IRA (Eddie Gallagher & Marian Coyle), I remember being enthralled by it and watching the RTE news anxiously.

Same here, especially the siege in Monastrevin.

It was probably due to the adults around being so enthralled by it that imprinted it.