The 1990s - Ireland's 1960s?

JupiterKid · 29-01-2017 12:43AM #1

For any boardsies old enough to remember, the 1990s ( my coming of age decade) was a decade of huge social change in Ireland. It was like the 1960s which happened in the rest of the developed world finally came to our shores.

Started with the election of Mary Robinson, our first woman President. Full availability of contraception after decades of half-measures and political hand wringing. Decriminalisation of homosexually in 1993. Free fees for third level in 1995. Divorce referendum passed in 1995. The Northern Ireland peace process/Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

And it was the decade with the X-case, the emerging scandals in the church and the beginning of the collapse of the power of the Catholic Church. All in all, an exciting time to be a young person.

Anyone else agree? What was your perspective of the 1990s?

Tigger · 29-01-2017 12:47AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

For any boardsies old enough to remember, the 1990s ( my coming of age decade) was a decade of huge social change in Ireland. It was like the 1960s which happened in the rest of the developed world finally came to our shores.

Started with the election of Mary Robinson, our first woman President. Full availability of contraception after decades of half-measures and political hand wringing. Decriminalisation of homosexually in 1993. Free fees for third level in 1995. The Northern Ireland peace process/Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

And it was the decade with the X-case, the emerging scandals in the church and the beginning of the collapse of the power of the Catholic Church. All in all, an exciting time to be a young person.

Anyone else agree? What was your perspective of the 1990s?

yeah i remember buying rubbers with my cassette albums in virgin and i know who the x - case is or the y case or one of them
the 90's were awesome

Dr Crayfish · 29-01-2017 12:49AM

I don't know. I didn't notice any changes at the time, didn't care about the X case, or politics, or the Church as I was a teenager. I don't remember not being able to get contraceptives, not that I needed them much! Looking back now it doesn't seem any different, except we didn't have smart phones.

super_furry · 29-01-2017 12:51AM

I remember going into Virgin Megastores on Eden Quay and seeing condoms for sale on the counter, amid protests by some mental holy joes outside. This was in 1993 or 94 and only a few years earlier Richard Branson had been arrested because Virgin had tried selling condoms.

Agricola · 29-01-2017 12:51AM

Let's not forget Italia 90, which as we all know kick started the Celtic Tiger and was a huge contributing factor to the prosperity of the time.........or something!

pablo128 · 29-01-2017 12:59AM

I can still vividly remember the raves. Oh man. *shivers*

Atlantic Dawn · 29-01-2017 01:08AM

What I like now is social media where a fookwit dirty filthy corrupt thick politician can be exposed so much easier than in the 90's, idiots will still vote for the fella who fixed the road though.

mzungu · 29-01-2017 01:12AM

The 90s were great. No doubt about it.

Ferrari3600 · 29-01-2017 01:13AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

For any boardsies old enough to remember, the 1990s ( my coming of age decade) was a decade of huge social change in Ireland. It was like the 1960s which happened in the rest of the developed world finally came to our shores.

Started with the election of Mary Robinson, our first woman President. Full availability of contraception after decades of half-measures and political hand wringing. Decriminalisation of homosexually in 1993. Free fees for third level in 1995. The Northern Ireland peace process/Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

And it was the decade with the X-case, the emerging scandals in the church and the beginning of the collapse of the power of the Catholic Church. All in all, an exciting time to be a young person.

Anyone else agree?

Yes and no. You're over simplifying complicated changes and need to do a bit more research on socio-cultural history.

Because of the Irish gombeenocracy and the Catholic Taliban, many of the most talented/artistic/alternative types emigrated in the 1960s-1980s.

Girls wore miniskirts in the 1960s even in Oireland...there was a gay bar in the 1950s called the Catacombs....Brendan Behan frequented it.

Question: why are homeless in London even to this day disproportionately Irish?

ejabrod · 29-01-2017 01:14AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

...Started with the election of Mary Robinson...

That cúnt has a lot to answer for.....the dilution of our gene pool ........ Yes I am angry..

A bleeding heart cúnt who does not have to live beside the 'refugees' who she opened the flood gates to with her 'humanitarian' heart to back in the early '90's.

Had she had live beside those she was advocating for she would never have been the humanitarian she pretends to be.. a €2.75 million residence she used to own NEVER had the hint of the people she was 'fighting' for nor does her current residence...the same with that other cúnt Mary Robinson.

Dr Crayfish · 29-01-2017 01:24AM

ejabrod wrote: »

That cúnt has a lot to answer for.....the dilution of our gene pool ........ Yes I am angry..

A bleeding heart cúnt who does not have to live beside the 'refugees' who she opened the flood gates to with her 'humanitarian' heart to back in the early '90's.

Had she had live beside those she was advocating for she would never have been the humanitarian she pretends to be.. a €2.75 million residence she used to own NEVER had the hint of the people she was 'fighting' for nor does her current residence...the same with that other cúnt Mary Robinson.

lol. What floodgates? Is Ireland flooded with refugees? News to me!

JupiterKid · 29-01-2017 01:25AM

Ferrari3600 wrote: »

Yes and no. You're over simplifying complicated changes and need to do a bit more research on socio-cultural history.

Because of the Irish gombeenocracy and the Catholic Taliban, many of the most talented/artistic/alternative types emigrated in the 1960s-1980s.

Girls wore miniskirts in the 1960s even in Oireland...there was a gay bar in the 1950s called the Catacombs....Brendan Behan frequented it.

Question: why are homeless in London even to this day disproportionately Irish?

I'm well aware that there there were major economic and social changes from the 1960s onward in Ireland - particularly in the 1970s with women's liberation. But a gay bar in the 1950s? It was well underground and you could be arrested and jailed for being gay back then. Gardai raids were common.

Dublin's first gay resource centre, the Hirschfield centre was firebombed in 1980 and the Gardai I didn't seem too keen on catching the perpetrators. Then in 1982, a gay man was beaten to death in Fairview Park and the perpetrators got away with disgustingly light sentences. The divorce referendum was lost in 1986. The 8th Amendment came in after a referendum in 1983. Ireland was decades behind the rest of Western Europe on social issues. The Catholic Church was still very powerful and weekly mass attendances were well over 80% of the population.

The 1990s was when we finally caught up. You cannot deny that the 1990s marked a sea change in attitudes towards women, minorities and religion in Ireland and I was glad to have lived through that. Aged 15 in 1990, 24 in 1999.

Oh, of course I forgot the divorce referendum in 1995 which passed by a wafer thin margin. The times were a changin' in the 90s.:)

super_furry · 29-01-2017 01:27AM

Christ, looks like Stormfront is leaking again.

JupiterKid · 29-01-2017 01:27AM

Ah yes, the right wing backward trogdolytes come out in this thread too.

Go back to the 1930s where you belong.

RayM · 29-01-2017 01:33AM

The '90s was great because idiots hadn't yet figured out how to use the internet.

CFlat · 29-01-2017 01:33AM

ejabrod wrote: »

That cúnt has a lot to answer for.....the dilution of our gene pool ........ Yes I am angry..

A bleeding heart cúnt who does not have to live beside the 'refugees' who she opened the flood gates to with her 'humanitarian' heart to back in the early '90's.

Had she had live beside those she was advocating for she would never have been the humanitarian she pretends to be.. a €2.75 million residence she used to own NEVER had the hint of the people she was 'fighting' for nor does her current residence...the same with that other cúnt Mary Robinson.

You're way worse then angry, you're a moron.

andekwarhola · 29-01-2017 01:35AM

The assertion is half right insofar as I don't think that political and social countercultures suddenly magically came into existence in the 90s but (as somebody that was a teenager here in the 80s) there is certainly a radical economic (and therefore a corollary social) demarcation between the 80s and the mid 90s onwards.

RayM · 29-01-2017 01:36AM

ejabrod wrote: »

Yes I am angry..

Must be horrible to be you.

DEFTLEFTHAND · 29-01-2017 01:37AM

It was the renaissance decade for pop music.

60s: The Beatles.

90s: Oasis.

The return of guitar pop after the dire 1980s, the verse, bridge, chorus song writing structure.

reason vs religion · 29-01-2017 01:45AM

andekwarhola wrote: »

The assertion is half right insofar as I don't think that political and social countercultures suddenly magically came into existence in the 90s but (as somebody that was a teenager here in the 80s) there is certainly a radical economic (and therefore a corollary social) demarcation between the 80s and the mid 90s onwards.

How a can a counterculture be identified unless it presents itself? There will, of course, have been preceding social developments that allowed it to come about, but it exists only when it's effects do too.

Ferrari3600 · 29-01-2017 01:55AM

ejabrod wrote: »

That cúnt has a lot to answer for.....the dilution of our gene pool ........ Yes I am angry..

A bleeding heart cúnt who does not have to live beside the 'refugees' who she opened the flood gates to with her 'humanitarian' heart to back in the early '90's.

Had she had live beside those she was advocating for she would never have been the humanitarian she pretends to be.. a €2.75 million residence she used to own NEVER had the hint of the people she was 'fighting' for nor does her current residence...the same with that other cúnt Mary Robinson.

What are you talking about?

Ferrari3600 · 29-01-2017 02:02AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

I'm well aware that there there were major economic and social changes from the 1960s onward in Ireland - particularly in the 1970s with women's liberation. But a gay bar in the 1950s? It was well underground and you could be arrested and jailed for being gay back then. Gardai raids were common.

Dublin's first gay resource centre, the Hirschfield centre was firebombed in 1980 and the Gardai I didn't seem too keen on catching the perpetrators. Then in 1982, a gay man was beaten to death in Fairview Park and the perpetrators got away with disgustingly light sentences. The divorce referendum was lost in 1986. The 8th Amendment came in after a referendum in 1983. Ireland was decades behind the rest of Western Europe on social issues. The Catholic Church was still very powerful and weekly mass attendances were well over 80% of the population.

The 1990s was when we finally caught up. You cannot deny that the 1990s marked a sea change in attitudes towards women, minorities and religion in Ireland and I was glad to have lived through that. Aged 15 in 1990, 24 in 1999.

Oh, of course I forgot the divorce referendum in 1995 which passed by a wafer thin margin. The times were a changin' in the 90s.:)

Fair points. There was definitely a gay-friendly bar called the Catacombs way back, RTE did a documentary about the early gay rights movement that mentions it, it should be in their archives. And Michael McLiamoir was widely known to have been in a gay relationship, but DeValera still gave him an honour, it seems that a blind eye was turned among certain circles.

I wasn't aware about the Hirschfield being fire-bombed, it just shows you. Was anyone convicted for this?

I am aware of the Fairview Park murder, and also another case from that period, the still unsolved murder of the former RTE set designer Charles Self.

Scary how close the divorce referendum was, looking back. I remember at the time giving a bit of a lecturing to a then work colleague who would have voted in favour but 'couldn't be bothered' to vote.

Shannon757 · 29-01-2017 02:04AM

I wasn't born yet so I can't really comment.

bodhrandude · 29-01-2017 02:12AM

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

It was the renaissance decade for pop music.

60s: The Beatles.

90s: Oasis.

The return of guitar pop after the dire 1980s, the verse, bridge, chorus song writing structure.

There you go.

catbear · 29-01-2017 02:16AM

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

It was the renaissance decade for pop music.

60s: The Beatles.

90s: Oasis.

The return of guitar pop after the dire 1980s, the verse, bridge, chorus song writing structure.

It was general something a music renaissance, Nirvana landed like an atomic bomb and big festivals were great.

but then there were clouds too, it turned out Boyzone were actually serious and real music took a hit that I believe we're only really recovering from now.

lazybones32 · 29-01-2017 02:17AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

Ah yes, the right wing backward trogdolytes come out in this thread too.

Go back to the 1930s where you belong.

Gotta love your liberal 'tolerance'...

RayM · 29-01-2017 02:18AM

lazybones32 wrote: »

Gotta love your liberal 'tolerance'...

Love the idea that liberalism is about 'tolerating' everything, no matter how hateful or nasty.

Fame and Demise · 29-01-2017 02:18AM

Let's not forget the bad times. The segregation, families torn apart, brother turning against brother, being treated as a pariah for years. All brought on by a simple question. "Oasis or Blur?"

JupiterKid · 29-01-2017 02:20AM

lazybones32 wrote: »

Gotta love your liberal 'tolerance'...

Calling former Presidents McAleese and Robinson c*nts is nothing short of disgusting. I will call out intolerance where I see it and will make NO apologies.

RobertKK · 29-01-2017 02:20AM

The Clintons were as trustworthy as ever.

Bill 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman'.

lazybones32 · 29-01-2017 02:22AM

I was powerless to the changes of the 90's but I would have voted against the Good Friday Agreement if I was eligible (just shy of the age*) but I never considered the 90's as being a grassroots revolution or anything. Change happened but not because it was instigated by the people or anything...we were and still are passengers to our own destiny...imo.

*Remember coming home from the pub drunk on a saturday to hear about the Omagh bombing

The 1990s - Ireland's 1960s?

Comments