The 70's and 80's in Ireland

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119104954#Comment_119104954

Yeh, we had a fella who'd come around in a white van. He had lots of stuff, probably all pirated, and underneath a certain box their was the...ahem...special stuff. 😁

£1 a night and he wrote down what you took in his little book.

Gas when you think of it.

cj maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119105022#Comment_119105022

The local priest used to collect us for football/ athletics training, the car packed and loads in the open boot. Same on the way back. Madness

Vita nova

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119105141#Comment_119105141

"I believe there is still infrastructure around with P&T stamps. Some post-boxes I believe"

And on manholes and access point covers except they used a symbol like a 7 for the &, i.e. P⁊T.

Getting an Irish Water connection has become the new phone line connection as far as waiting times are concerned; I know a few people waiting over 7 months for a water connection.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119055480#Comment_119055480

I remember driving that road back in the day, an absolutely massive satellite dish made out of tonnes of aluminum on the left hand side of the house, afaik it wasn't for receiving UK channels though.

Always took notice of that because we were fancy in the late 80s with our own 2.4 metre sattelite dish that was too big for the roof that received like 4 English channels about forty German ones.

Hangdogroad

Speaking of German satelite channels, the one that would show 70s German soft core sex comedies on Saturday nights. I may be fast forwarding to the 90s though.

fryup

on the subject of video's

the two 'must see' 'rights of passage' video's in my neck of the woods was Porky's and The Life of Brian

we'd reenact the scenes & lines constantly during school breaktime 😜

Porky's was mindblowing couldn't believe how raunchy it was and even by today standards its still up there

Ger Roe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119105268#Comment_119105268

I doesn't look like a satellite dish - more like a serious attempt to focus a very weak VHF/UHF TV signal. More than likely it was for receiving UK TV from a considerable distance away. The face of the dish structure would have to be covered in a metal micro mesh, small enough for reflection of the correct received wavelength.

The angle of the dish is not correct for receiving intended North European Satellite reception, but it is certainly a beast of construction.

Pussyhands

Well judging by the comments of young people today giving out about their parents being able to afford a house with a crappy job I can only imagine the 80's being a time where you could work in a corner shop selling penny sweets, finish work at 4 and catch a bus to the 3 arena for a U2 concert after feasting on a top class meal in some fancy restaurant.

As someone with parents from that era, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. All these people saying "my dad was a teacher and my mam stayed at home looking after the kids and they could afford a 3 bed semi in Dublin!".....all I can say to that is, you were actually one of the well off ones back then, similar to a tech worker on big money now.

My parents had nothing and still don't have anything. Never bought a house, never rented. If the 80's was so mighty and easy then why did so many emigrate? You'd think if getting a house or an easy job was so simple, why would they leave?

Furze99

The Snapper was on the box the other night, brought me right back.

A great laugh and fairly true to the times.

cml387

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119107161#Comment_119107161

Yes, I was told by a local from around the Golden area that it was for receiving UK tv.

Also I saw an identical dish in the early eighties somewhere between Mountmellick and Tullamore, and that one was facing north, which makes sense if it's for TV from the north.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119107251#Comment_119107251

The 80s was still the era of the permanent pensionable job. Those that had one stayed- those that didn’t, emigrated if they could and had skills and/or education to travel with.

Interest rates were Sky high, incomes low in general, tax was ridiculous but if you could get mortgage approval you could get a house- the prices weren’t as ridiculous as they are now. Council houses were the norm for many- but that allowed them to work and raise a family with a roof over their heads- but wages for skilled workers like plumbers and carpenters weren’t near as high as they are today.

IT as a mainstream job was still in its infancy in the 1980s in Ireland- a teacher, guard, bank official after say 7 years service would have been on decent wages - certainly enough to get a Dublin 3 bed semi mortgage over 20 years. But these would have been considered “normal” jobs- not extra ordinary - if you drove a new Mercedes’ or bmw in the 1980s you had seriously more money than most- politicians and company directors would have but most could only dream of such luxuries. A foreign holiday was still classed as a luxury - most still holidayed in Ireland.

fryup

yep, even to travel by plane over to London was seen as exotic

Hotblack Desiato

It used to be IR£300 for a return flight Dublin-London in the 80s which was far more than a week's wages for most.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/108189000#Comment_108189000

Managed to find a pic:

Anyone else remember these? They were around for a few years in the second half of the 80s and then they just disappeared. I used to love them. There doesn't seem to be anything like them available now which is a shame.

Badly Drunk Boy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120008674#Comment_120008674

Is that the Sallynoggin bus across from Bus Stop/Freebird Records? 😉 I remember seeing those escalopes things back in the day but never tried them. I was never into ham and cheese.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120008674#Comment_120008674

They were loud as fûck down the back… and very smoky… between passengers smoking and the engine..

cj maxx

Cutting turf on the mountain, , snaring rabbits. Money was at a premium. If the was a bit of mould on a slice of bread you scraped it off.

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119096476#Comment_119096476

My late granny had a phone voice , she didn’t get a phone until she was seventy seven ( 1987 )

JupiterKid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120008674#Comment_120008674

Absolute bangers by the late 1980s when I had the misfortune to use them on my way to school each morning - that were very badly maintained, broke down all the time, freezing cold upstairs in the winter and the rear of the lower deck would fill up with fumes from the engine.

Banana Republic days...

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120009698#Comment_120009698

You went to school in a Galtee Ham & Cheese Escalope? The 80s was even worse than I remembered!

riclad

you don,t wish for something you dont have, people played games on consoles,pcs .instead of netflix there was satellite tv, or sky tv, 100s of tv channels, or cable tv. people listed to pirate radio ,or bbc radio, before 2fm existed, or radio luxembourg.

now theres endless choice on youtube, tik tok,netflix, many games on xbox look as good as a movie. people would buy porn magazines .

people would put up aerials just to watch bbc,itv,c4 or else get cable tv .many tv stations switched off at midnight. we were not bored ,people probably read more books or magazines than young people nowadays

wotzgoingon

I remember my Da stealing the pipe after the guy came out to cut us off quite literally. He cut us off many times over the years. He would go up with a ladder and snip the coaxial cable and then cut it again where it when into the sitting room at the front of the house. And all you had to do is connect it back up. But My Da didn't do it properly as the reception would be real iffy. I was a child then and knew nothing about it but I was an electrician for years so if I was a spark back then we could have stolen the pipe and have it connected properly.

For Forks Sake

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120011713#Comment_120011713

..

Cluedo Monopoly

Christmas would definitely start later in the 80s. We wouldn't put up decorations until a few days before Xmas day. You were also genuinely thankful for presents and nice food/sweets. Nowadays people have everything they want already.

Count Dracula

Had no phone until 1980. Used to be a public one across the road.

It was 82 pence for 10 silk cut Red, we would usually go 3's or 4's on a packet. Whoever vomited first usually lost out on any spares. Burger Bites were 10p. Chomps and Wham bars something similar. It was 20p Schools bus fare. A ticket to the schoolboys terrace in Lansdowne was 2 pound, for a 5 nations game. In 1987 it was one pound to see Ireland v Romania, we won 60 - 0 and it was at the time the largest international victory ever, it was only 4 points a try.

I cycled into town on a regular basis. There were no cycle paths. Clanbrassil street was a derelict shell from Leonard's Corner all the way to St Patricks Cathedral, it looked like a bomb site. Imagine all those redbrick apartments now were just decrepit old Georgian houses with wild shrubbery giving shelter to the South Inner City heroin users who took refuge inside. Gardner street wasn't far behind, it was another wasteland.

McDonalds opened one store i think on Grafton Street? Or maybe O'Connell street.

There was a cinema where st Stephens green centre is . Might have been called the Green Cinema. The Adelphi, The Savoy, The Carlton, The Screen. You would get listings in the Evening Press or the Herald. You could smoke at the Cinema, there would be a haze of smoke, all seats had ashtrays. You could smoke upstairs on the buses, like a trooper.

Condoms were illegal until the King Charles J Introduced them, via prescription only, to the Free State. Before that you just had to get married and keep her washed at all times. I didn't pop my cherry until the early 90's, I had terrible acne and we never had enough hot water, I stank fairly high no doubt, woooooooooo. Mother of Christ, who is that? I would use my brothers Old Spice at the discos, where I would ask every girl there for a dance during the slow sets.

For any millennials reading, a slow set was a 10-12 minute period of romantic slow music played roughly every hour at the Disco. It was a great opportunity to get some awkward French kissing in. A " Frenchie " were the precursor to the modern shift or snog. Boob rubbing and dry humping was widespread in the corner couches. Those were the days my friends. Dock Martens, Paisly shirts , black leather jackets with patches stitched onto them with the names and logos of your favorite band.

Millennials might also be interested in knowing that nobody wore English Club Soccer Jerseys either, the Flecky tracksuit and shiny jersey of choice only creeped in towards the very late eighties. The fact still remains that the Premier League has ensured that Britain still has a fundamental stranglehold on Irish sports fans, it is very very sad. You didn't hang around your local shouting " ah come on Manupool" etc on a Sunday afternoon either, the pubs were closed and they only played sport on a Sunday in the north of England, Yorkshire and Scotland. In the bookies you would listen to the races on MW radio, the odds were compiled by a dude on a blackboard with chalk.

There were only 2 TV stations. We watched a Soap Opera every Saturday night which was based around an unscrupulous family from Texas who lived in a ranch called South Fork, all of them in the same gaff ,3 generations. They also moonlighted as the richest Oil Producers in the United States. It was called Dallas and was a national institution. The show centered around the Ewing family, who when they weren't fighting over dinner, or drinking endless amounts of Johnny Walker Red label from a mahogany cabinet in either their office or living room, managed to spend the rest of their time lying topless in a double bed with whoever it was implicated they were screwing at the time. Top stud was JR, the eldest son of Jock and poor aul dote Miss Ellie. JR was your textbook backstabbing womaniser who you just could not help but adore. He was married to former Miss USA Sue Ellen, who fancied the local ranch hand Dusty, who was JR's dad illegitimate sons' head Cowboy, his named was Ray. Ray was a nice guy but painfully boring he went steady with some bland type who never wore as much revealing clothes as the Cheerleader lookalike Lucy who was JR's, Ray's and Bobby's ( get to him in sec ) other brother's daughter. Can't remember his name, he was an off screen character anyways, lived in Knots Landing, don't ask I think possibly posh Los Angeles. The aforementioned Bobby was JR's sibling headache and they were always at each other. Bobby's touch was the divine Pamela who was played sexily and touched the auto neuronic erogenous zones of every red blooded house husband who couldn't spare himself a fiver for 3-4 pints of a Saturday night. Instead he visually stimulated himself and enjoyed mild stiffy's watching Lucy or Victoria Principal flaunt around in backless strapless cocktail dresses or ever so subtly see through blouses. Oh yeah I almost forgot the luckless loser Cliff Barnes who had a constant vendetta against the Ewing family ( except Miss Ellie who has to be easily the biggest passive aggressive character ever created in the history of filmmaking, right down to her annoying accent, and squinting weeney grey eyes). The best craic usually occurred at the perennial fist fight at the oil barons ball or the bomb diving of the Ewing swimming pool at the annual barbecue, I recall a few fisticuffs at that as well. Or when someone was shot, Kidnapped, murdered etc at the season finale. Which in full credit to the Irish televison viewer was rarely watched again after the producers decided to resurrect Bobby Ewing from the dead by convincing the remaining brain dead viewership that the entire previous series had been a dream that Pamela had. I was out by that stage in case any of you think I was that phucking thick. Things to be doing.

They don't make them like they used to.

wotzgoingon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120012721#Comment_120012721

It was a good read until you went on a mad rant about some show I never watched. Didn't even read it I quickly glanced through it. (the part about the tv show that is)

riclad

Even in the 80s people would put aerials on the roof to get BBC and ITV or get cable TV people smoked everywhere work pubs offices. You could not buy condoms in supermarkets it was happy d to get contraception it was a big deal when MTV was on cable and you could watch music videos instead of waiting to watch top of the pops once a week

Any single person with a job like a nurse Garda could buy a house on one salary

Rents were low it was easy to get a flat or a bedsit Dublin had a lot of old derelict buildings falling down empty before apartments were built all over the place

and new offices were built after old buildings were knocked down

People mostly stayed in jobs till they retired all documents bank records were on files paper documents company's were just starting to use computers in the 80s people in the country would have large aerials to get BBC itv signal

If a woman in the civil service got married she was expected to leave her job

Well off people had a large stereo hi fi system and a 32 inch Sony TV

It was common for married people to have 4 or 5 kids

There' was no online bullying or trolls since the internet did not exist people only took photos with expensive camera,s

Usually at weddings or party's

blackbox

28 inch was considered to be a huge tv.

cml387

Talking about cinemas as you were (I'm not rom Dublin so bear with me) there used to be a cinema I believe at the bottom of O'Connel Bridge House called I think the Film Centre.

The reason I mention this is that it seemed to show some of the more risque films (at least those that managed to get past the film censor).

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120013713#Comment_120013713

Yeah. I think it was the predecessor of the IFI in Temple Bar and may also have been in what is now the Sugar Club for a time. That was the sugar companies private cinema originally!