Ireland the 1980s

5rtytry56 · 22-09-2016 07:01PM

sligojoek wrote: »

He was with Joe Duffy's Funny friday on a thursday crew at the ploughing c/ship today.

Brush was Gay Burns's omnipresent "special guest" on the Late Late Show in the 1980s.

22-09-2016 08:29PM

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Was it mandatory that Brush f*cking Shiels turn up to every event in the 80's?

Brush Shiels and BP Fallon.

And the edgier crowd tuning in to Dave Fanning at 8.

donegaLroad · 22-09-2016 09:09PM

5rtytry56 wrote: »

Aer Lingus actually had 3 Jumbo Jet 747s, the biggest planes they will ever operate.

they needed them to take all the immigrants to the States

ScumLord · 22-09-2016 09:12PM

Deleted User wrote: »

I bet the people who actually were living through the 80s didn't think of it as being that bad at the time. To them, their only reference points were times prior to them, so they would have thought they had things better than people in the 70s, 60s and before, since they had more technology and entertainment than before (universal colour tv, vcrs, walkmans, primitive home computer games).

The 80s were shyte.

Universal colour tv, vcrs, walkmans, primitive home computing, didn't really exist for most people. You might know someone with a walkman, another person with a vcr. The nostalgic view we have of the 80s, the technology, the music, the clothes, wasn't really happening in the west of Ireland. We were pretty much still tying up the loose ends of the 60s and 70s.

Nearly everyone was drunk, a lot of the time.

Schools were still Catholic strongholds of misery, civil patriotism and abuse.

I feel like the 90s is when everything started to change, we more or less skipped the culture of the 80s here.

Dyr · 22-09-2016 09:14PM

Modern shiney economies like the muggles to spend their lives up to their ears in debt for the most basic of things

Anything else is unsustainable

Fuzzy Clam · 22-09-2016 09:20PM

ScumLord wrote:

Schools were still Catholic strongholds of misery, civil patriotism and abuse.

ScumLord wrote:

Universal colour tv, vcrs, walkmans, primitive home computing, didn't really exist for most people. You might know someone with a walkman, another person with a vcr. The nostalgic view we have of the 80s, the technology, the music, the clothes, wasn't really happening in the west of Ireland. We were pretty much still tying up the loose ends of the 60s and 70s.

ScumLord wrote:

I feel like the 90s is when everything started to change, we more or less skipped the culture of the 80s here.

ScumLord wrote:

Nearly everyone was drunk, a lot of the time.

ScumLord wrote:

The 80s were shyte.

ScumLord wrote:

Universal colour tv, vcrs, walkmans, primitive home computing, didn't really exist for most people. You might know someone with a walkman, another person with a vcr. The nostalgic view we have of the 80s, the technology, the music, the clothes, wasn't really happening in the west of Ireland. We were pretty much still tying up the loose ends of the 60s and 70s.

ScumLord wrote:

Nearly everyone was drunk, a lot of the time.

ScumLord wrote:

Schools were still Catholic strongholds of misery, civil patriotism and abuse.

ScumLord wrote:

I feel like the 90s is when everything started to change, we more or less skipped the culture of the 80s here.

Most people had colour TVs. I had a walkman in 85 and I wasn't exactly flush.
We didn't miss home computers as they didn't exist for most of us.
The social scene was much better then today, even with less available cash.
We had great radio with the pirates compared with the regulated muck today.
The 80's was what we made it to be. What we wanted it to be. Unlike today where everybody just moans.

mailforkev · 22-09-2016 09:22PM

5rtytry56 wrote: »

Aer Lingus actually had 3 Jumbo Jet 747s, the biggest planes they will ever operate.

I was even given a tour of the cockpit of one of them whilst going on holidays. None of that these days.

Mind you, 80s Ireland was a culturally repressive hole compared to today. We really only got the 60s in the 90s.

We always had all the UK tv stations and got Sky etc at some point in the late 80s, my wife's family only had RTÉ. We have surprisingly different cultural references from the 80s, it's funny how closed the place was back then.

allthedoyles · 22-09-2016 09:27PM

Started work in 1980 on £45 per week . Bought a 3 year old Fiat 127 for £1,200 .

SEPT 23 1989 · 22-09-2016 09:28PM

I'm sure we flew to the building site that was Portugal on an Air Lingus 747 in the mid 80s

Our only foreign holiday

Mr. FoggPatches · 22-09-2016 09:29PM

I had a great time in the eighties
Where was I when princess di got married? On my bike.
Where was I when live aid was happening? Playing football.
Where was I when heysel happened? Community games.
Where was I when self aid happened? Playing tennis
Where was I during euro 88? Planted in front of the TV.
Where was I when the Berlin wall fell? Playing pitch and putt.

What a time it was to be alive.

SEPT 23 1989 · 22-09-2016 09:30PM

allthedoyles wrote: »

Started work in 1980 on £45 per week . Bought a 3 year old Fiat 127 for £1,200 .

Was it a black "sport"

Grayson · 22-09-2016 09:33PM

5rtytry56 wrote: »

Aer Lingus actually had 3 Jumbo Jet 747s, the biggest planes they will ever operate.

How much did flights cost? Remember when it cost a fortune to fly to london?

MadYaker · 22-09-2016 09:35PM

Unemployment may have been 20% in the nation but I'd say it was a lot lower in Dublin. I'm not arsed looking up figures but I'd guess it was probably under 10%?

Bateman · 22-09-2016 09:49PM

Winterlong wrote: »

Worst thing about the 80s was not the unemployment. It was Electric Eddie and the 2FM roadcaster.

The Beat on the Street...ah memories

andekwarhola · 22-09-2016 09:51PM

Bateman wrote: »

The Beatings on the Street...ah memories

Fixed.

Allinall · 22-09-2016 09:53PM

ScumLord wrote: »

The 80s were shyte.

Universal colour tv, vcrs, walkmans, primitive home computing, didn't really exist for most people. You might know someone with a walkman, another person with a vcr. The nostalgic view we have of the 80s, the technology, the music, the clothes, wasn't really happening in the west of Ireland. We were pretty much still tying up the loose ends of the 60s and 70s.

Nearly everyone was drunk, a lot of the time.

Schools were still Catholic strongholds of misery, civil patriotism and abuse.

I feel like the 90s is when everything started to change, we more or less skipped the culture of the 80s here.

That sounds like a whole lot of bitterness.

Revisionism is not good.

foggy_lad · 22-09-2016 10:01PM

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Most people had colour TVs. I had a walkman in 85 and I wasn't exactly flush.
We didn't miss home computers as they didn't exist for most of us.
The social scene was much better then today, even with less available cash.
We had great radio with the pirates compared with the regulated muck today.
The 80's was what we made it to be. What we wanted it to be. Unlike today where everybody just moans.

We didn't get a colour TV till about 1984 and although the neighbours had a massive deflector aerial and were offering to cut other neighbours in for a small fee we couldn't afford it and made do with just two channels till the same year we got the colour TV when we also got "cable TV". That was just the UK channels though as there was no SKY back then. we didn't get a phone till the late 80's and the closest we got to a computer was a calculator.

allthedoyles · 22-09-2016 10:06PM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote:

Was it a black "sport"

It was a yellow car

Fuzzy Clam · 22-09-2016 10:14PM

foggy_lad wrote:

We didn't get a colour TV till about 1984 and although the neighbours had a massive deflector aerial and were offering to cut other neighbours in for a small fee we couldn't afford it and made do with just two channels till the same year we got the colour TV when we also got "cable TV". That was just the UK channels though as there was no SKY back then. we didn't get a phone till the late 80's and the closest we got to a computer was a calculator.

Not having any of those things does not make the 1980s "shyte".
I didn't have a smart phone or the internet or Sky TV or a laptop or or or .......
It didn't make the 80,s any worse.

Dr Crayfish · 22-09-2016 10:15PM

Ah, the 80s were lovely, my childhood. My youthful parents, Roland Rat, Basil Brush, Kenny Everett, the Muskahounds... And having my Grandparents around, all of them!
I'm from Dublin but we didn't have a phone till I was about 8. Emergency calls had to go to our neighbours. We hadn't much money but it didn't matter, I can't remember anything but happy young parents and my brother and I having a lovely childhood. I wish I could go back to our old house back then just for an hour

Vinculus · 22-09-2016 10:22PM

First time I watched Blade Runner was on a 14 inch black and white portable TV and it blew my mind.
I was eleven.

storker · 22-09-2016 10:24PM

donegaLroad wrote: »

they needed them to take all the immigrants to the States

I remember being on one for the trip back to London after Christmas. I thought at first I'd got on the wrong plane...

Grandeeod · 22-09-2016 10:26PM

Deleted User wrote: »

But...there was massive unemployment. And emigration. The stats are all there. I don't think anecdotal evidence about estates being built changes that, and I don't remember too much going up in Cork at all.

We held a concert to address the unemployment crisis. Cactus World News played. It don't get much worse than that.

Cactus World News were ****ing great! End of!

Grandeeod · 22-09-2016 10:33PM

In relation to buying houses in the 80s....First time buyers grant was introduced with new builds to support it. It had to be a new build to qualify for the grant. See the trend??

Even into the 90s, you could buy a new house with a £100 (old money:D) deposit plus the first time buyers grant and mortgage approval. Loads did it and many were in very basic jobs. Look where it lead us to.

allthedoyles · 22-09-2016 10:37PM

Other than RTE1 and RTE2 we used to be able to get HTV Wales on an outdoor aerial .
That was it just three tv stations

black & white · 22-09-2016 10:39PM

Left school in 79 and worked all through the 80's except for most of 86. It was a tough time for many people but there was usually work in and around Shannon industrial estate so the effect wasn't as bad. I remember those years as being good, I bought my first house for 22k, a 2 bed starter bungalow (a dormer without the upstairs done so you did it as you got the money) on a decent site. Ok, the telly was ****e but it's mostly that now so ....... The house would be worth about 180k now.

Big Nasty · 22-09-2016 10:42PM

The biggest difference between the 80s recession and our most recent one was nobody had anything to begin with. In the late 00s we had cars and mortgages, credit card bills and banks throwing money like confetti. Therefore when the recession hit you didn't just have nothing, you had nothing minus €350k.

uch · 22-09-2016 11:10PM

MadYaker wrote: »

Unemployment may have been 20% in the nation but I'd say it was a lot lower in Dublin. I'm not arsed looking up figures but I'd guess it was probably under 10%?

Nope it was pretty shíte up here too, couldn't get a job, I was out of work for about 3 years and took a pox of a job in a warehouse just to have a few bob for to be going meeting the mots, in the estate I lived in there was about 40% unemployment, and sadly Heroin became your mate, cheap as fuk and forget your worries, I suppose most urban estates were the same, of the twelve or so lads I grew up with, 5 are dead from drug abuse and 4 are still addicts, (how they are still alive is beyond me), I was the lucky one, but it took me 30 years to become clean, it was a very harsh time but yet I still look back at the likes of good neighbours and friendly people everywhere, who like us didn't have a pot to piss in but just got on with things. What I miss today is nobody says hello to you when you pass them anymore

black & white · 22-09-2016 11:34PM

Big Nasty wrote: »

The biggest difference between the 80s recession and our most recent one was nobody had anything to begin with. In the late 00s we had cars and mortgages, credit card bills and banks throwing money like confetti. Therefore when the recession hit you didn't just have nothing, you had nothing minus €350k.

Agreed, if I lost my job (which I did a few months after buying the house) the mortgage was the only bill to worry about. My car was a 7 year old Escort which I had bought for cash the year before, no credit card, no multichannel so not too many money worries thankfully

eman66 · 22-09-2016 11:44PM

The mince money queue was out the door, down the steps and out the gate. Then, somewhere between the counter and the street, it magically turned into pints-at-11am-on-a-Thursday-morning money.

Ireland the 1980s

Comments