What was the first big news story that caught your attention when you were young!

DEFTLEFTHAND

Just thinking of Martin McGuinness and I'd say the 94 IRA ceasefire would have been something that resonated. I thought it was a funny word.

I remember my father used to shout Ceasefire, Ceasefire!! at my brother and I when we fought.

fire_man

The Gulf war around 1990 only 6 watching it on news.Was scary at the time.

Charles Babbage

juno10353 wrote: »

The Aberfan disaster in 1966 where a childrens school was buried under an avalanche of slack from the coalmines killing 116 children and 28 adults.

Aberfan made an impact as I had recently started school.

Going Forward

Four Phucs Ache wrote: »

The newspaper had a purple square in the corner but I can't remember the name of it.I think it stopped printing in the 90's

The Evening Press.

bonzodog2

Aberfan, RFK,MLK,Moon landings,Biafra

Mackman

I kind of remember the Berlin Wall coming down, I would have been 5. Definitely remember Italia '90 and Jamie Bulger.

quadrifoglio verde

The omagh bombing in 98. I was 6. I vividly remember the news story that day and it's the only part of the troubles that stick with me. Perhaps because it happened in our country.

Innocent people, Catholics and protestants, people doing there shopping, people on holidays and all of a sudden they're lives are wiped out. The ages of some of the children who died in it and thinking they were only a few years older than me.

Innocent lives just taken and for what?

I'd two great uncles who were drinking in Greacens bar when the bomb exploded in monaghan in the 70s. The young lady who had just poured one of them a pint was killed, yet I barely bat an eyelid when I see it come up on reeling in the years. But every time I see 1998 being shown, I know they'll show scenes from the 15th of August and think back to my 6 year old self

Jack the Stripper

I was too busy figuring out how cars and girls worked.

andekwarhola

bodice ripper wrote: »

This thread like a month ago.

If that's the first thing you remember, you are showing remarkable intelligence and technical dexterity posting this at one month old.

I was a toddler, but I think I remember my dad picking me up in his arms and showing me people climbing on a wall on TV and telling me it's a very important day, the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and I was born in early 1987 so I often wonder if I just imagine remembering it. In another memory that feels like the same one - or at least the same day - I was on either my mother or fathers lap and they were telling me about the man on tv and how he'd been in prison for a very long time but he was going home today, and his name was Nelson Mandala. My dad was singing the song, Free Nelson Mandala. I didn't know what prison was.

I remember everyone talking about a little boy called Jamie, and being strangely frightened but not really knowing why.

The first big story I remember clearly was Princess Diana's death, when I was about ten. I remember the funeral on tv and feeling sorry for her sons because they had to be brave in front of all those people when they probably wanted to just cry for their mummy.

I didn't really take 9/11 in properly until later that evening when the news were showing footage, and a man was just falling from the tower, like a rag doll. I remember it really hitting me that he wasn't a rag doll but a real person. Someones daddy, son, brother, someone real. I was really upset about that particular poor man for a long time.

ToddyDoody

It was fake new from my brother. Santa had got into difficulty and wouldn't be doing Christmas this year.

tomwaterford

The stand off at drumcree in 95/96??

It seemed to be another murder/shooting every evening on the news....


and the genuie worry that people we knew woupd been dragged into it....seem to recall three young kids getting killed/seriously hurt in a petrol bomb attack



Crazy to think....20 years ago,parts of ireland shood on the brink of civil war,and today unionists can attend funerals of martin mcguiness and noone blinks an eye to it

Marje

Disappearance of Mary Boyle in 1977.

diomed

Cuban missile crisis when I was 12. A few days waiting for a nuclear war to kick off.

Realt Dearg Sec

diomed wrote: »

Cuban missile crisis when I was 12. A few days waiting for a nuclear war to kick off.

That must have been an absolutely crazy time. I often think of it from studying history. I'm old enough to remember the cold war and the possibility of nuclear war but that moment always struck me as a real instance where the end of the world must have seemed imminent to everybody in the world.

I think my earliest memories are of the Ethiopian famine, the horror of what was happening and the (when I think of it) trivial way it was used by parents guilt us into eating dinner!

I remember the wall coming down without really understanding the significance of it. Just that it was good news, which was unusual for the news.

When Mandela got out we were in 6th class and they let us watch it on TV in school. Basically it was a room full of kids watching an empty road for what felt like hours without really knowing why. We watched a great movie about south Africa after that which made it all relevant in retrospect but on the day the teachers explaining it to us didn't really sink in.

Arne_Saknussem

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

That must have been an absolutely crazy time. I often think of it from studying history. I'm old enough to remember the cold war and the possibility of nuclear war but that moment always struck me as a real instance where the end of the world must have seemed imminent to everybody in the world.

I think my earliest memories are of the Ethiopian famine, the horror of what was happening and the (when I think of it) trivial way it was used by parents guilt us into eating dinner!

I remember the wall coming down without really understanding the significance of it. Just that it was good news, which was unusual for the news.

When Mandela got out we were in 6th class and they let us watch it on TV in school. Basically it was a room full of kids watching an empty road for what felt like hours without really knowing why. We watched a great movie about south Africa after that which made it all relevant in retrospect but on the day the teachers explaining it to us didn't really sink in.

That was a Sunday, i remember being pissed off cos they cancelled the Beatbox to show it live.

Realt Dearg Sec

That's bananas, I looked it up and you're right! No idea where that memory came from. Unless his welcome home parade was the next day or something?

Cultural memory is a funny thing. Apparently oral histiry is full of stuff like this, like people born in 1922 who claim, and fully believe, they remember the black and tans knocking on their door as children.

Arne_Saknussem

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

That's bananas, I looked it up and you're right! No idea where that memory came from. Unless his welcome home parade was the next day or something?

Cultural memory is a funny thing. Apparently oral histiry is full of stuff like this, like people born in 1922 who claim, and fully believe, they remember the black and tans knocking on their door as children.

Possibly but your description of looking at 'a road for hours' seems to tally with mine. A road with a raising arm barrier, for hours.

They possibly taped it and showed it to you in school, complete with film afterwards?

IvyTheTerrible

Chernobyl and the Challenger disaster, both when I was six.

Tokyo

I remember plenty of the almost daily news headlines from the north from quite an early age, but the news event that actually sticks out to me as my earliest memory of something to be concerned about is the Chernobyl accident that occurred on the 26th of April 1986. I was 6 years old at the time, but I still remember it being on the news (b&w TV at the time) and the concerned looks on my parents faces. At the time I believe there was a far that a radioactive cloud would blow west across Europe and onto Ireland, but if I'm not mistaken, the weather conditions changed and it didn't happen.

JupiterKid

mike_ie wrote: »

I remember plenty of the almost daily news headlines from the north from quite an early age, but the news event that actually sticks out to me as my earliest memory of something to be concerned about is the Chernobyl accident that occurred on the 26th of April 1986. I was 6 years old at the time, but I still remember it being on the news (b&w TV at the time) and the concerned looks on my parents faces. At the time I believe there was a far that a radioactive cloud would blow west across Europe and onto Ireland, but if I'm not mistaken, the weather conditions changed and it didn't happen.

I was 11 when the Chernobyl disaster happened and as a very anxious child was convinced that we were all going to die.:(

billy few mates

Melodeon wrote: »

The Apollo 11 mission, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

I can remember that one too. I remember listening to it on the radio as it was all happening and my dad explaining what a huge deal it was.
I also remember me and my siblings gazing up at the moon hoping to catch a glimpse of what was happening....:)

extra gravy

Strange but the first news event i remember is the assassination of the Ceaucescus, maybe it's so vivid because it happened around Christmas. Have vague memories of the 88 Olympics but first real sporting memory is that Cameroon goal at the 1990 WC.

Omackeral

Lady is a tramp wrote: »

Jamie Bulger I think. I'm 31, that would've happened in the early nineties.

mrmoonlight wrote: »

Jamie bulger in 1993

con___manx1 wrote: »

Jamie bulger and the gulf war.

Mackman wrote: »

Definitely remember Italia '90 and Jamie Bulger.

Why can people never get this child's name right? His name was James. Neither his parents nor his family called him Jamie. I know it probably doesn't seem like a big deal to people but Jamie just wasn't his name and he wasn't called by it and I think the very least folks could do would be to get his name right..

Colm_D

The Stardust disaster. Mine & my sisters' Saturday morning ritual of sitting in front of the TV watching 'Anything Goes' with Aonghus McNally & co. was interrupted by Mike Murphy's (Murphy the news, not Murphy the shoes) News Flash.

Optimalprimerib

Probably hillsborough. I remember we were gearing up to watch it on TV in my neighbours when their mother came out saying that that it was cancelled because of bad crowd trouble.

They would not let us watch the coverage, but I remember seeing some clips on the news.

Fr Tod Umptious

The year of the three Pope's, 1978.

Pope Paul dies in late August, and John Paul I in late September.

At the time we only had one channel, RTE 1, and the usual week day afternoon cartoons were cancelled because of the coverage.

For it to happen once was a pain, but twice was really bad.

Fr Tod Umptious

Colm_D wrote: »

The Stardust disaster. Mine & my sisters' Saturday morning ritual of sitting in front of the TV watching 'Anything Goes' with Aonghus McNally & co. was interrupted by Mike Murphy's (Murphy the news, not Murphy the shoes) News Flash.

That's my exact recollection of it too.

sleepyman

Hillsborough disaster-remember seeing the photos on the front pages of the paper and the lop covered in flowers.Was too young to fully understand what had happened

Liam McPoyle

Roy Orbisons death, my mam was a huge fan of his and i remember her crying when she heard the news.

The Lockerbie bombing.

I happened to be at home from school (Christmas holidays perhaps) and I remember my mam and I watching the footage unfold on BBC1.

I just realised that both were in 1988 within a couple of weeks of each other, I was 9 at the time and I don't really have any other memories from the 80s.

Thanks alcohol.