Waterford 1990

JohnC.

YouTube threw up a video of Waterford in 1990. Credited to John J. Fitzgerald.

https://youtu.be/8BIOrdQqQB4?si=WXJzW_kI3tbbJYkl

Asdfgh2020

that’s been available/viewable for years now at this stage…..shows how absolutely **** 💩 and depressing things were in that era and that applied to the hole cuntry at the time……Levi 501’s were one of the most sought after garments at close to £100……there was no city square, George’s st centre was the place to go as was bridge hotel if ya wanted a shift and a lovely late night curry…🤣

Valhalla90

Looks very grim. We are definitely on the right road but we still have some distance to go yet. There’s still too much dereliction around the city.

PTH2009

Love looking at the WYA videos

A bit of the 'well boy timmy with tina from ballybricken went to this and that at Pearse park lane but Mrs kelly etc etc can get annoying but the amount of local job opportunites back then sounded great

Growing up in the 90s and sad to think theyll be little 'innocence' stories to tell when were in our 50s/60s

Flow Motion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121951766#Comment_121951766

The 90's were a great decade IIRC. Waterford had a thriving nightlife. There was no internet or social media. People actually spoke face-to-face. TBH apart from the Waterford CU building @ corner of Colbeck St there's not many empty shop premises. And there's not a charity shop to be seen. Carefree easy going times. Was only a teenager at the time but enjoyed the experience around town. It wasnt Las Vegas but was all the better for that.

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026880#Comment_122026880

post 1990 things began to get better but not over night. From 1980 to 1990 though things were sh1t…..I don’t remember before 1980 but the 1980 to 1990 decade was depressing and that video gives you a flavour of it albeit a ‘turning point’ as things did get better from 1990 on…..not sure if Peter st/Arundel sq or railway Sq feature in the vid but they were in an awful state

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122028268#Comment_122028268

yea, we ve only really seen true modernisation in the last couple of decades, the 80's and most of the 90's were indeed fairly depressing, high unemployment, emigration etc etc etc

fuzzy dunlop

Logged on to Facebook this morning and "Waterford then and now FB page" had someone who left Waterford 60 years ago complain about how sh!te the place is now. I mean the person must be approaching 80 years of age at least. And the inevitable tsunami of moaners and begrudgers had a field day.

I would say between 1984-1987 was the low point for the city.If you look at this video and videos available on the RTE archives you can see things had become grim.I think broad street center was the first development that showed evidence of things very slowly turning around.There were brownfield sites and dilapidation all over place with absolutely nobody taking showing any interest in developing them.

I don't know where the infinite negativity comes from. We have a multitude of problems but the fact is there is no comparison to back then. The place was f*cking boring and at one point we were reduced to Breens being virtually the only nightclub in town. I used to go to the 'back o the mansion' around then which in some peoples minds equated to being in a Colombian drug cartel. I will say this though, the pubs may, just may have been better.

azimuth17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122033803#Comment_122033803

Pubs were better then no doubt, but all else was pretty grim.

The infinite negativity comes IMHO from the ex Glass factory milieu, high status employees with low educational attainment ( Ref : John Hearne's history of Waterford Glass, a must read for anyone interested) and low skill transference who were literally cast by the way side. They and their families (think skilled heavy blowers and top rank master cutters) went from being recognised master craftsmen and masters of the local unverse to being almost unemployable. A reputation for union militancy did not help. It was an extremely sad situation for all and because of the numbers of people employed there and the extended families (a huge proportion of the city at that stage) who thought that Waterford Glass WAS Waterford, when they were in the sh#ts, by definition everything, ie Waterford city, was in the sh#ts. Its a classic story following the decline of any large manufacturing industry as high skill, craft workers self esteem was destroyed.

The rest of the city just moved on and it must have been the same when the Neptune Shipbuilding yard closed in 1890, but the moaning and negativity, which on examination, is closely associated with some parts of the city which shall be nameless, continues.

Asdfgh2020

Mr / Mrs flow motion may have been an ex crystal worker or from a family of an ex ‘glass’ worker….?

I came across that Facebook picture also which showed a view of the ‘keys’ taken to the west of the ‘Clock Tower’ facing in towards Reginald’s tower……as bleak and desolate a picture as you can imagine and swiftly followed a barrage of posters saying how much better the ‘keys’ were then vs now. You just couldn’t make it up…😡

fuzzy dunlop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122035036#Comment_122035036

It's not just the glass though. I thought this for a long time too but its more widespread than that. It's definitely the older generation. That is for sure! And education is also a factor. Dermott Power has done a lot of interviews through WYA with a lot of the older generation. There is one in particular with an old Fine Gaeler who I won't name because I know him and have a lot of time for him, but it stands out for me. The interview starts of with thirties poverty when people had to pawn pots and pans to make ends meet. Straw filled sacks as mattresses and those kinds of stories. Then the man's working career became the topic which if you read between the lines, show that a job with status (apart from the glass) would be something like a supervisor in what were glorified kn@ckers yards around the Glen area. The fact that the man seems to have had to get married outside of town because his gf was pregnant was also illustrative of the period. Yet somehow……somehow they conclude that things were better back then. I think we also have a problem with people passing themselves of as local historians. A few of them are extremely embittered to the point of raving lunacy.

fuzzy dunlop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122035907#Comment_122035907

I was 13 in 1987 and my family had moved back into town from Ballybeg about a year earlier. There was dilapidation everywhere. Mary Street, Glasshouse Lane, Scotch Quay, Adelphi Quay, Glasshouse Lane, Peter Street, Arudel Square and many many other places. The housing stock in the city centre was dreadful.Spring Garden Alley had houses that were mere hovels! The small park was infested with street drinkers. People go on about mobile phone shops and coffee shops but back in the eighties the city was blighted with amusement arcades, pound shops and takeaways. Railway Square had gone back to nature so that Millers Marsh extended all of the way into town!

I once saw an old video of the 'thrill on the hill' from around 1987 that someone had posted on a FB group. What astonished me was the collective self delusion that everyone posting was taking part in. 'Ah there's your nanny lol!'. But everyone looked absolutely jaded and miserable. Apart from the children and young lads who were steamed up already. It was a good community effort but you could see the hard times on the faces of people.

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122037055#Comment_122037055

This thread has its share of ‘good old days’/waterford gets nothing’ cheer leaders but for real hard core ‘shite time deniers’ Facebook and the page ‘wateford then and now’ tops all……in the 80’s bar the pubs almost the next and only entertainment for teenagers was ‘snooker halls’……there was sullys, pot black and show boat and also a place in Ballybeg….potters I think…? Darts was also popular but snooker was going through a boom period in the 80’s led by the Alex Higgins (who was in retrospect was a total w@nker) and Steve Davis rivalry. As you point out the dereliction was rampant…..people’s park barely had a swing……and there were no other parks to speak of…..the ‘blues’ did fairly well in the early 80’s in the sporting front but in Gaelic games things were as depressing as the economy

Mulbert

Im glad this has come up. Its like all these people have had false memories implanted in their heads.

Waterford in the 70's/80's had a derelict depressing streetscape. Traffic congestion was far worse than it is today.

Buildings were crumbling. Until recently streets were closed during high winds for fear of slates from these buildings detaching and hitting people. Manor Street/Bridge St for example and many others felt like they were about to fall down.

The Quays were bumper to bumper with 40fts and HGVs. They could be exporting live cattle from down by The Tower and you would be surrounded by terrified animals p/ssing and s]itting all over the road and your car.

The roads/streets and footpaths were in bits.

There was plenty of violence too. People seem to forget that part. And unemployment, alcoholism, suicide and other such indicators of a poor, unhappy and difunctional society.

Id take nowadays over those days any day!

fuzzy dunlop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122037640#Comment_122037640

I spent a lot of time in Snooker halls. There was a weird thing about them. Apart from the people who genuinely went there to play snooker you might have kids there playing video games and the poker machine junkies. And in amongst them all floating around you had a group of middle aged 'villains' who came out of central casting. I think the showboat was maybe an exception but not immune.There were times Pot Black and Sully's made me feel like I was an extra on the tv show minder. The arcades imo were like a buffer zone between the bookies and the playgrounds. And I know a couple of young lads who came in harms way for that reason.

Dexpat

Yeah comments above sum things up really. Waterford as a place 30 or 40 years ago was nothing like it is now. I left in 1995 after part time college in the RTC after a lot of factory work. Most of my leaving cert class in 1987 emigrated.. Educationally with the false 'University' designation there are still a lot of issues. Overall Waterford has been transformed for the better considering that an industry employing 3000 folded less than 20 years ago. It's probably human nature to think things were better in the past but it's delusional in Waterford's case