Your earliest current affairs/news memory?

18-11-2016 11:38PM #1

Obviously we all remember sports events and music going way way back. I can just about remember Kate Bush hitting number 1 with Wuthering Heights when I was about 4 courtesy of my older siblings who played it non stop...and lots of Irish football in 81 and 82 for the same older siblings reason.

But what's your oldest news or (then) current affairs memory? I can very clearly remember Stardust in 1981 because we thought my brother, who was living in Artane and never missed a night out, was there. As it turned out, he was too drunk to go with friends of his who went there...and all made it out alive. Going back even further, I remember the Whiddy Island Disaster in January 79 as I live in South Kerry and it lit up the sky. But for some bizarre reason I can remember when Vietnam invaded Cambodia about a month before that, I can't say I knew Pol Pot was on the run, it was possibly the sight of tanks rolling through a city impressing a 4 year old...

Fr_Dougal · 18-11-2016 11:41PM

Member?

Clairvic · 18-11-2016 11:45PM

Omagh bombing.

Innocent people blown up while they went about their business.

mzungu · 18-11-2016 11:45PM

The Challenger disaster.

buried · 18-11-2016 11:46PM

Ronald Reagan dedicating the Columbia NASA rocket ship launch to the Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan. Worked out well. Can't wait to see what the new lad will do.

Pherekydes · 18-11-2016 11:46PM

Kennedy's visit.

TresGats · 18-11-2016 11:47PM

Seeing DeValera lying in state , I would have been 4.
I just remember long queues and everyone being very upset.

FortySeven · 18-11-2016 11:48PM

Piper alpha was the first I took interest in but I remember the Falklands.

lertsnim · 18-11-2016 11:49PM

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Member?

I member

Mongfinder General · 18-11-2016 11:49PM

The Brighton bomb.

marienbad · 18-11-2016 11:53PM

The Vietnam war nightly on the news with Charles Mitchell and reported as if we were fighting it complete with US casualty lists and the number of Viet Cong killed . It really was bizarre looking back on it

Cortina_MK_IV · 18-11-2016 11:54PM

Last of the U.S troops leaving Vietnam in 1973. Think my da would have been having one of his rants makes it stick in my mind.

miezekatze · 18-11-2016 11:54PM

Probably the chernobyl disaster, I think we weren't allowed to play outside for a bit or eat stuff from the garden.

18-11-2016 11:54PM

"They think it's all over, it is now!"

_Whimsical_ · 18-11-2016 11:55PM

The Hillsborough disaster. I was playing with toys on the floor with a neighbours kid while her dad watched it unfold on TV. We were way too young to have any idea what was going on but I remember knowing it was bad.

mansize · 18-11-2016 11:59PM

The first time we did this thread

uch · 18-11-2016 11:59PM

When Elvis died, was everywhere, I was about 7, the picture in the evening Press is stuck in me head

cdeb · 18-11-2016 11:59PM

The Townsend Thoresen disaster I think. Remember drawing a picture of it, weirdly.

19-11-2016 12:01AM

FortySeven wrote: »

Piper alpha was the first I took interest in but I remember the Falklands.

Yeah. I was much older than when I saw Whiddy Island, 14 when Piper Alpha blew up...but it sticks in the mind, possibly because of Whiddy and the whole oil explosion thing. It was a few months after the Kings Cross fire too afair...another one where we waited for a sibling to phone home, not as nervous as the Stardust but had a sister in Central London at the time...

The flying mouse · 19-11-2016 12:04AM

I remember when the :troubles: broke out in Derry and the marches been attacked by the police.

Also remember the first man on the moon and looking up to see could I see him.

Vaguely remember Vietnam .

Nomis21 · 19-11-2016 12:04AM

I was living in England, and just ten years old when I was watching my favourite TV programme on Friday nights called 'Take Your Pick'. It was a TV quiz show that had been running for years and hosted by a presenter called 'Michael Miles':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irg29je8G8k

Half way through the show, without warning, the screen went blank for several minutes and eventually an ashen face presenter appeared on screen saying that President Kennedy had been shot but that there was no further news. Both TV stations (There was only BBC 1 and ITV then) cancelled all programmes for the rest of the night, just making announcements when they received news from Dallas via the first ever launched TV satellite called 'Telstar'.

BettePorter · 19-11-2016 12:05AM

Ben dunne being kidnapped by the IRA in 1981. I was 6 and thought dunnes was just a local shop and a particular guy that stacked the shelves there was him! After his release id see the guy and think oh hes ok now. Ironically the same guy STILL works there so he probably deserves to own the place!

19-11-2016 12:06AM

Maggie Thatcher by a long shot! She was the only person on tv who was hated by all the adults. Consistently. Thatcher and black flags everywhere.

"Thatcher, Thatcher, throw her up and catch her!" as was the nursery rhyme in school when I was but a gasúr.

Honourable mention to Big Ian when it came to riling us with soundbytes. "We say never, never, never!". Current affairs was so much more entertaining in those days (not forgetting the actors doing Gerry Adams' voice).

jackinthemix94 · 19-11-2016 12:06AM

9/11 would be mine, but barely.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater · 19-11-2016 12:07AM

I have a vague recollection of Brian Keenan being released from captivity. That was 1990 so I was only 5. Not sure how I remember it tbh, but I do!

cdeb · 19-11-2016 12:09AM

Deleted User wrote: »

"Thatcher, Thatcher, throw her up and catch her!" as was the nursery rhyme in school when I was but a gasúr.

Ha! Remember that. Though we used to do it putting ketchup on the burgers on Friday evenings for dinner. "Here's Maggie Thatcher, throw her up and catch her" - then put the bun lid on, mash the ketchup in good and proper - "Squish squash, squish squash, here's Maggie Thatcher."

19-11-2016 12:09AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Maggie Thatcher by a long shot! She was the only person on tv who was hated by all the adults. Consistently. Thatcher and black flags everywhere.

"Thatcher, Thatcher, throw her up and catch her!" as was the nursery rhyme in school when I was but a gasúr.

Honourable mention to Big Ian when it came to riling us with soundbytes. "We say never, never, never!". Current affairs was so much more entertaining in those days (not forgetting the actors doing Gerry Adams' voice).

I remember singing...

Oh Maggie Thatcher you can't match her
She's the darlin of them all
She's the curse of the Irish nation
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil...
...forgotten lyrics...
If I ever catch poor Maggie I'd shoot her up the hole...

Edit, after googling we must have had a version of this song...

http://youtu.be/ZJh0m0E7Ozg

return guide · 19-11-2016 12:10AM

monasterevin siege

19-11-2016 12:12AM

BettePorter wrote: »

Ben dunne being kidnapped by the IRA in 1981. I was 6 and thought dunnes was just a local shop and a particular guy that stacked the shelves there was him! After his release id see the guy and think oh hes ok now. Ironically the same guy STILL works there so he probably deserves to own the place!

Speaking of which, Ben Dunne - yes, the same one of Ben Dunne Gyms - high as a kite on cocaine outside the window on the 17th storey of a hotel in Florida as a hooker tried to plámás him into coming back inside, all covered live on US tv by one of those tv traffic helicopters.

That was some 9pm TV News in Ireland that night!

Larbre34 · 19-11-2016 12:12AM

I clearly remember the Stardust fire on the news and also the Falklands conflict, age 4/5

uch · 19-11-2016 12:13AM

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

The Hillsborough disaster. I was playing with toys on the floor with a neighbours kid while her dad watched it unfold on TV. We were way too young to have any idea what was going on but I remember knowing it was bad.

I remember watching the BIG Match when this happened, we didn't see many live matches at the time, but because this was a big game it was televised in Ireland, when it started I thought it was just a pitch invasion, how wrong I was, ended up watching bodies being put in ambulances, fuking shocking viewing, the kids with their bodies pressed against the fence, and the next morning, the sun blaming the fans, now I'm a long way from an english football supporter but this was very sad

Your earliest current affairs/news memory?

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