Before the smoking ban

glitterIsland

I remember when people smoked in pubs and restaurants. I vaguely remember people smoking on buses and I vaguely remember smoking in shops. We're people allowed to smoke in shops?

Killnascully is on and there was a scene with someone in hospital. I know its tv and not everything is true on TV but he was smoking on the ward on the TV. Were people allowed to smoke in hospitals before the cigarette ban.

The best thing to happen was the smoking ban in Ireland. They should take it further now and ban smoking from doorways and bus stops.

y0ssar1an22

remember trains had a smoking carriage and designated smoking areas in restaurants.

night clubs were the worst. on the dance floor and everyone smoking.

is it banned in cars with children now?

Pawwed Rig

Upstairs on the bus was for smoking. Also there were smoking carriages on trains.

Also smoking on planes

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079685#Comment_120079685

i always get worried on planes with the little ashtrays. how old is this thing?

Count Dracula

there were smoking rooms in hospitals like common areas generally on each floor.

A lot of smokers end up in hospitals you know?

igCorcaigh

There was a room on the hospital ward where people smoked. I don't recall smoking in the ward itself.

mikemac2

I remember a sign in Xtravision about no smoking. I don't believe smoking in shops really being a thing. You did not go to Spar or a butcher or pharmacy smoking

growleaves

Teachers could smoke while teaching a class at one time.

glitterIsland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079705#Comment_120079705

That must be going back a long time. It wasn't in my day.

glitterIsland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079704#Comment_120079704

I can't fully remember shops to be honest.

SEPT 23 1989

The Smoking carriages on the inter city trains were the best

if there was smoking there was drinking

and probably a ghetto blaster

paradise lost

zell12

Some college lecture halls still have big 'no smoking' signs up. Probably from the 80s

I remember smoking was allowed on coaches - it was awful. Distinctly remember a mammy pushing a trolley around Quinnsworth with a benson in her lips and a tot on top of trolley. It was not allowed, but ignored.

redmenace1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079697#Comment_120079697

Do you think it's a coincidence

Atlantic Dawn

Why did people never smoke at mass?

seamusk84

I remember in the square tallaght smoking was allowed. Specifically in the common indoor areas (non shop). Also people smoking in the Burger King there.

gipi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079701#Comment_120079701

I remember being in hospital in the mid 80s, and a woman in the bed across from me used to ask the nurse to turn off her oxygen so she could smoke....

Don't remember any teachers smoking in class, but one teacher I had used to "step out" 2 or 3 times during a 40 min class for a smoke!

There was no ban on smoking in offices up to the late 90s, the woman who sat across from me was a chain smoker - it was vile!

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079704#Comment_120079704

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079701#Comment_120079701

There was smoking in the wards before the smoking rooms. Doctors smoked as they did their rounds too.

And of course there was smoking in shops by customers and staff.

glitterIsland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079773#Comment_120079773

Im roaring laughing at the idea of doctors smoking doing the rounds on the wards. What year was that?

O.A.P

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079705#Comment_120079705

From 2nd to 6th class I had two teachers who both smoked in class in front of us.

Probably half or more of my class mates smoked when ever they got a chance then also.

igCorcaigh

It's mental when you think about it! Such a shift in societal attitudes.

Will we think of alcohol in a similar way in the future?

glitterIsland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079768#Comment_120079768

F*cking hell. I'm laughing at the first bit of your post but of course it wouldnt be funny with the dangers of oxygen and fire.

I remember smoking on busses etc. in shopping centres, even in a place I worked just before the ban had a room. I don't ever recall anyone smoking in a supermarket back then?

College late 90's had a room off the canteen for smoking, wasn't allowed anywhere else within the buildings.

I did a stint working in pubs and clubs back then and the brown you'd wash off of your clothes and self was disgusting and I say that as someone who did smoke back then.

But you know what we were out over Christmas and I was out side with my brother who still smokes and I'd rather the smell of real cigarettes vs that sick sweet smell of the vapes, bad if it's one person in passing but in a smoking area where there was maybe a dozen or so of them 🤮

mikemac2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079752#Comment_120079752

The men were standing outside. Not all men, those with families would stay together

Seats inside were for women and children. Many men would never sit and would either stand at the back of the church or stand outside.Maybe it's a football terrace thing, dunno.

I believe this was in the Richard Harris film The Field. A gang of men standing outside the front door while mass was going on. More gossiping than women!

ablelocks

The saddest thing that I'd ever seen

Were smokers outside the hospital doors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP8kROJqfck&ab_channel=LinaBorisova

y0ssar1an22

some boarding schools had smoking rooms for 5/6th year students if parents gave consent. wonder what the age requirement was then? think that stopped late 90's

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079785#Comment_120079785

Good question. I reckon it was maybe mid 70s that I saw it.

trellheim

I remember visiting the grandad on St Johns hospital in Limerick and he smoking on the ward in the 80s

I remember smoking sections on most airlines through most of the 90s . I was a smoker myself and I remember it slowly being banned across Europe in offices across the 90s . Then finally being surprised at being able to smoke at the desk in a bank in Portugal in 2002 or whenever . All gone now and given up many years ago

L1011

Smoking inside shops was rare; except you'd sometimes find tiny shops where the owner was smoking themselves. Common areas in the indoor shopping centres usually had smoking bans but the older ones, e.g. the Square mentioned up-thread, would have had smoking originally. Much of the original interior there was brown tinged by design, handily!

Most restaurants and cafes were down to a small smoking section, if at all, by the time of the ban. Very few offices allowed smoking, the Civil Service had banned in many years before but you would still find exceptions - particularly small businesses where the owner smoked.

Going to NI for the few years until they brought theirs in was always a bit of a surprise; as it still is going to suitably small bars in Denmark/Portugal/Netherlands where they have ban exceptions. I do remember going to see a DJ in NI for Paddys Weekend 2007; having Bensons and cans inside a nightclub made it feel like he was playing a gaff party.

Great uncle of mine died due to the oxygen supply and cigarette 'problem' in the 80s - albeit in Chicago, not here.

griffin100

I remember in my first ‘office job’ in the late 90’s you could smoke in your office if you had your own office or if you shared with people who didn’t object. One aul lad had an office to himself and smoked manky cheap cigars, you could smell them as soon as you entered the building and everywhere inside. It was grim.

cuttingtimber22

Smoking in the cinema.

smoking in restaurants

smoking on planes

smoking in dressing rooms (sports)

smoking on buses (top deck)

smoking in the office and the canteen

Smoking in lap dance clubs

glitterIsland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079794#Comment_120079794

It's a different world now.

L1011

Was checking when the public transport ban came in - 1988

That would be why I don't remember it. Well, legally - upstairs on Nitelinks were smokefests until the overall ban came in and Dublin Bus started caring

angel eyes 2012

My friend was having a baby in one of the Maternity hospitals in 1998 and there was a smoking room for the Mothers and visitors on the ward.

Also, was doing work experience in one of the banks in 1996, and staff were smoking at their desks.

sunbabe08

Old enough to remember the smoking rooms in the hospitals.

I remember after a night out in a pub or a club and my clothes would be reeling in smoke and I hated it so much. I still can’t stand the smell of smoke. Martin maybe been a crap leader, but I am forever grateful that he brought in that smoking ban

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079720#Comment_120079720

My 1st class teacher did in 1982 or 83

Hospital smoking rooms were a thing until the ban itself

sparrowcar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079690#Comment_120079690

You must be flying in some well dodgy countries to still see that?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080181#Comment_120080181

Given the user name I'd wager a B-25 around Italy 😂

Fann Linn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079900#Comment_120079900

I remember hopping on an Aeroflot from Shannon heading to Leningrad now called St. Petersburg. The plane had come originally from Cuba and I was seated next to a lad who proceeded to smoke his finest Havana's practically all the way until we reached our destination. I almost retched on an number of occasions throughout that flight.

NewbridgeIR

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079826#Comment_120079826

Sixth years could smoke in my school (I left in 1989)

cuttingtimber22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080239#Comment_120080239

Lucky fecker. What had you going to Leningrad?

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079810#Comment_120079810

College late 90's had a room off the canteen for smoking, wasn't allowed anywhere else within the buildings.

This shows how quickly things evolved. My college (UCG in the mid-1990s) had a non-smoking section of the main canteen that, well, wasn't very strictly enforced. Although IIRC the year I left they opened a secondary canteen in a separate building that was genuinely non-smoking...

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079705#Comment_120079705

Our teachers didn’t smoke in the classroom, but on the rare occasions when you had to call to the staff room, you could have cut slices off the thick fog of fag smoke.

The idea of having a no smoking area on a plane or a bus or any small or medium sized restaurant was ridiculous, like having a no pissing area in a swimming pool.

I remember having to plead with staff in one restaurant to NOT give out ashtrays in the non smoking area.

dickdasr1234

My GP had venetian blinds in his surgery - on a sunny day you could barely see him through the haze of smoke!

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080591#Comment_120080591

It depended on the size of plane. The smoking was at the back and it wouldn't be so bad on a large jumbo jet or the like.

But you are quite right about the failure to maintain non smoking areas in restaurants.

The airport was mostly non smoking in the 1990s , but had smoking areas. I once challenged the guard who was smoking at the entrance to the airside area, where you produce your boarding pass, and he said that it was his birthday!

Big Gerry

I wonder how long ago it was before Doctors stopped offering their patients a Cigarette when they went to visit them ?

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

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079917#Comment_120079917

Smoking carriages on trains continued well past that though didn't they? I only became a regular on the Dublin -Mayo train round the turn of the century and I think I remember them...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080617#Comment_120080617

Definitely remember being in the smoking carriage on the Dublin-Rosslare train in 2001. They probably stayed until the smoking ban.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080604#Comment_120080604

Yeah, but they also had smoking in business class, so the front row of coach non smoking was just behind the back row of business smoking. Yuech.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080640#Comment_120080640

True enough. However, on a Jumbo the business could be upstairs!

I don’t remember much about the 1980s, but I know the smoking restrictions came in gradually.

I definitely don’t remember smoking in shops, cinemas or urban transport. I vaguely remember being stuck in a smoking carriage on an intercity train as a small kid though and actually crying because it was so smoky and we had to sit between the carriages for the rest of the trip.

I think restaurants had smoking and non smoking areas at one stage too. It was common in France and a Belgium much later than here and it was absolutely disgusting tbh. You’d have clouds of smoke from the designated smoking area, which, rather unsurprisingly, didn’t just stay in that area…

I used to really notice the harsh contrast when you arrived in a country with a lot of smoking and no smoking bans. Still very recent in a lot of places and non existent in some less health conscious spots …

head82

Smokin' in the cinema.. when they had those little oval ashtrays attached to the back of the seat in front of you. And then there was the local corner/sweet shop next to the 'tech' (as opposed to the posher secondary schools) that would sell you a loose cigarette and a match because none of us could afford a full pack of ten.

Aahh.. the good auld days!