Before the smoking ban

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!

RetroEncabulator

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!

Strumms

Waking up with the stink of smoke off your clothes and hair….and a hangover was no fun…

I am just reading that it was the Minister for Health at the time Michael Martin that was mainly responsible for spearheading and introducing the smoking ban.

a pretty brave move. He’s been far from a great Taoiseach in my view but that is a great legacy to leave….. that bit of work alone.

dontmindme

Ah yeh...smoking in the cinema - it was probably one of the only places you'd be fairly left in peace smoking when you were a kid.

10 smokes - 19 pence is my earliest memory and it was me and my mate buying them for his mother - we were probably around 8 or 9.

They had smoking rooms in airports well into the 2000s and possibly still have them in some places.

I remember the brown nicotine fingers on my GP.

Atlantic Dawn

I remember circa late 1990's the school secretary smoking in the main office building while she worked during school hours, mad when you look back, a place of education allowing it while even if you were a complete backward fookwith the warnings were on the packets since the early 1980's and you were allowing it around children in their place of education with no choice for them to avoid it. Fast forward now and if someone had a diesel car running in the car park of the school they would get the electric chair.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080767#Comment_120080767

Unfortunately, idling of petrol and diesel engines outside schools, football training, sweet shops and just about everywhere is still a routine practice, because “I don’t want to get cold” so I’ll run a 12 volt fan off a 2 litre diesel engine. We need to make this socially unacceptable.

teediddlyeye

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

All new planes still have ashtrays in the toilets incase someone does light up, there needs to be somewhere safe to put it out.

Thespoofer

First flight I ever went on I smoked on it ( about 30 years ago now ) and even for me was horrible. Few of the back rows were designated smoking and front non smoking, as if it made any difference !

Also remember smoking in a ward, wasn't a 'normal ward ' ( heh heh ) , again just under 30 years back ( I had a hectic life back then, all settled now thank God ).

The older I'm getting the more I xan see now the benefits of the ban. Quite a few people I would have known from the pub scene in the past have all died off ( all heavy smokers, myself included ). Even this week heard of another one dead relatively young.

I stopped cold turkey about 23 years ago now, took up exercise, good diet, rarely drink. Hopefully not too late to turn the tide.

Whatever ye do kids, don't smoke.

Fann Linn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080367#Comment_120080367

If I recall correctly, there was a travel agency back in the day off Dame Street which dealt with trips to countries beyond the Iron Curtain. Lep Travel I think it was named. I used to travel on my own then so went in a trip which consisted of 6 nights in Leningrad and then travel by train to Moscow for another 6 nights.

One of the most enjoyable holidays I was actually on, looking back now.

Baybay

I attended the “school” dentist as we called him then in the early 80s & while he didn’t smoke in the surgery while I was in it, the cloud of smoke as I went in was choking. Despite the fact that most people smoked wherever they chose then, few seemed to have heard of opening a window. But the worst bit was during the checkup with his smoke & nicotine tasting fingers. To this day, I am ok with dental procedures but if attending a new dentist, despite them all wearing gloves now, I almost gag at the first inspection, half expecting that same dental fresh taste!

mojesius

There was also the fake cigarette sweets in the 80s and 90s. They came in a little box and you'd walk down the street pretending to smoke them. They were of a crumbly texture, probably full of E additives as everything was then (I think E123 was the cancer - inducing one among others.

Also, being sent to the shop at 8 years old with a note from your granny 'please supply with 40 silk cut purple and a dairy milk'.

Hellrazer

Also, being sent to the shop at 8 years old with a note from your granny 'please supply with 40 silk cut purple and a dairy milk'.

Similar here - always remember my mam sending me for 20 blue and a sliced pan.

Another one I remember was buying a "loosie" - a single cigarette with a match for 15- 20 old pence - that was while I was in school in the late 80s / early 90s. Used the school lunch money to but a loosie and that would last you all day. Think a pack of 10 smokes was around 80 pence back then so the shop was cleaning up

One thing I remember and dont see it mentioned was banks - I always remember lodging my wages cheque on a Friday and standing in the queue with everyone smoking and those big bin type ashtrays full of butts.Probably around 1994 or so.

We flew to Barbados in 1996 and it was an aeroflot flight that you could smoke on - last 10 rows or something were smoking and we had sat up the front. But everyone was swapping seats so people could smoke. Honestly it was brilliant - Im a bad flyer anyway but being able to smoke and drink at the time on a flight made it so much easier. Mad how much prices have increased over the years.

cigprices.pdf