The 1990s - Ireland's 1960s?

lazybones32 wrote: »

By accusing any disagreeable notion of being a right-wing troglodyte and to go back 90 years? The man has an opinion different to you - who says you have to correct him/her? Attack the post and not the poster...and all that jazz. But I'm sure it doesn't apply when it's Left v Right.

I wouldn't ask/demand an apology for any wrong-doing on your behalf. It's your Right to be wrong too. And to persist in it...

I have no problem with posters disagreeing with me. I DO have a problem when a poster insults former Statespeople and spouts racist, xenophobic bile.

Oh I'm sure the currents of change were there in the 80s, but it was the 90s when the dam finally burst. And what a burst it was!

Bishop Eamonn Carey's "scandal" was nothing in comparison to the real scandals that broke later in the decade - the evil Fr Brendan Smyth and the culture of child abuse and hiding/facilitating it and the horror of Goldenbridge orphanage.

The 90s was when Ireland finally grew up and took a mature look at itself.

I remember when I was in my last year of school and Utopia, the first sex shop opened in Dublin. That was a big step. And the Legion of Mary brigade protesting outside it for a while.

Deleted User wrote: »

I think the 80s saw more upheaval.

Sure, the 90s was when homosexuality was decriminalised and Bishop Casey was caught etc...but think the 80s was when the seeds were sown. The 80s was a decade when the real sea change in attitudes took place that enabled the more liberal steps in the 90s take place...hence the election of a female President or the decriminalisation of homosexuality at the start of that decade, hence the audience for Casey's downfall. It took some shocking incidents in the 80s to shake us up, the Kerry Babies Case and the death of Ann Lovett being the 2 I always remember when Irish society looked at itself and thought "this is ugly".

The one thing that the 90s can claim more ownership of was the Peace Process, because in the early 90s things looked as bleak as ever.

You would have been about 9 or maybe 10 at the time of the Ann Lovett/Kerry Babies case. Can you really remember not just the events (I barely do and I'm only about a year your junior - I was more interested in my BMX and Lego:D) but were you following political discourse about these events too at the time?

Deleted User wrote: »

I guess that tells you all you need to know about how much it filtered into public consciousness. Every school kid knew about the Kerry Babies case, there were even jokes doing the rounds in school yards. Of course we weren't following the political discourse or analysing it at a profound level, no more than school kids 10 years later were analysing the societal impact of decriminalising homosexuality and eulogising Maire Geoghegan Quinn.

Fair enough. But look at how the divorce referendum was lost in '86, and then passed (wafer thin!) in 1995. As a gay man coming to terms with my sexuality , the decriminalisation of homosexuality meant a lot to me - an awful lot. I remember going into Waterstones about 1995 to buy a new UK published guide to gay sex and the look of disgust on the shop assistants face as she grudgingly handed it to me (it was behind the counter!) I asked her outright "have you got a problem?" And she didn't know where to look! But there was also a liberal small book shop called Books Upstairs that sold LGBT texts and had a very sympathetic shop assistant.

Also, apart from the Church scandals and the decline in mass attendances, the 90s saw a much more self-confident Ireland, able to come to terms with its past and discuss things much more openly. Immigration from non EU countries began in the latter half of the decade, urban renewal of our towns and cities was in full swing, the arts were thriving, there was a positivity in the air after the economic gloom of the 80s. Oh, and the roads got a lot better too!:pac:

Ok - I'm sure I'm looking at with a biased view as I was young and came of age during this decade, but I've no doubt in my mind that the 1990s was Ireland's most important decade in terms of social change since the foundation of the State. More so than the 70s.

Disagree if you want but that's what boards is for I suppose, argument and being contrary lol!:D