The 1990s - Ireland's 1960s?

JupiterKid · 29-01-2017 11:14AM

Allen Yellow Hobo wrote: »

Having been around since the 40s, I think the 80s were the real decade of noticeable change in Ireland.

What about the 60s and 70s? Was the 80s not all economic gloom, mass emigration, crap roads and super-corrupt politicos in charge?

Panrich · 29-01-2017 11:27AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

What about the 60s and 70s? Was the 80s not all economic gloom, mass emigration, crap roads and super-corrupt politicos in charge?

The church began to lose its grip on society in the 80s. It was the first decade that most young people attended university. I remember back to the 70s and literally half of kids left school after the inter cert to take up a trade or just because they didn't have to go any more.
The points race began in the late 70s and women were no longer looking at jobs as a stopgap until they got married.

The early 80s saw everyone tooling up academically for emigration and the knock on effects were that a more educated and liberal leaning generation emerged. The 90s boom saw a lot of that 80s generation return home to start to raise their families. The earlier emigrants from the 50s - 70s never had that chance.

29-01-2017 11:27AM

It was a significant decade in terms of Ireland's contribution to the arts. For example it can be argued that the best Irish films were made in this period- "The Field", "The Commitments" , "Michael Collins", "In the name of the Father" , "The Butcher Boy" to name a few. Irish cinema had more recognition at the Oscars in the 90's than any other decade.
In terms of literature Roddy Doyle won the Booker prize in 1993 & Seamus Heaney won Nobel prize for literature in 1995.
Probably the best sitcom of all time came in the form of Father Ted in 1995, The hanging gale was also an international success.
Musically it was a remarkable decade, 1990 saw the first Feile festival in semple stadium- the first trip to Tipp.
We also won the Eurovision 4 times in the 90's.
In wasn't such a bad era after all!

AnthonyCny · 29-01-2017 11:48AM

Fr Ted had a massive effect. Showed the Catholic Church as a bit of a joke organisation.

First time people really looked down on the Catholic Church

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 29-01-2017 12:15PM

JupiterKid wrote: »

What about the 60s and 70s? Was the 80s not all economic gloom, mass emigration, crap roads and super-corrupt politicos in charge?

The change that led to the Celtic tiger, began in the mid to late 80s. Social reform began in the 80s too. The 60s and 70s was lifeless gloom and poverty

ToddyDoody · 29-01-2017 03:01PM

There was a pop song on the radio that mentioned the word 'horny' several hundred times - a truly revolutionary period.

Dyr · 29-01-2017 03:21PM

RayM wrote: »

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

Never a truer word spoken, it all went so wrong

and now we have this

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/big-data-cambridge-analytica-brexit-trump

maryishere · 29-01-2017 04:41PM

People like Bob Geldof started the ball rolling about 1980 or thereabouts with the song "Banana Republic" , which was a protest song about the corruption etc of some of our politicians, planners etc.

Banana Republic, Septic Isle
Screamin' in the sufferin' sea, sounds like cryin'
Everywhere I go, yeah everywhere I see
The black and blue uniforms, Police and Priests

And I wonder do you wonder while you're sleeping with your whore?
Sharing beds with history is like a-licking runnin' sores
Forty shades of green yeah, sixty shades of red
Heroes going cheap these days, price a bullet in the head

Banana Republic, Septic Isle
Sufferin' in the screamin' sea, sounds like dyin'
Everywhere I go, yeah everywhere I see
The black and blue uniforms, Police and Priests

Take your hand and lead you up a garden path
Let me stand aside here and watch you pass
Strikin' up a soldier's song, I know that tune
It begs too many questions and answers too

Banana Republic, Septic Isle
Sufferin' in the screamin' sea, sounds like dyin'
Everywhere I go, yeah everywhere I see
The black and blue uniforms, Police and Priests

The purple and the pinstripe they mutely shake their heads
A silence shriekin' volumes violence worse than they condemn
Stab you in the back yeah laughin' in your face
Glad to see the place again, it's a pity nothing's changed

Banana Republic, Septic Isle
Sufferin' in the screamin' sea, sounds like dyin'
Everywhere I go, yeah everywhere I see
The black and blue uniforms, Police and Priests

Banana Republic, Septic Isle
Sufferin' in the screamin' sea, sounds like dyin'
Everywhere I go, yeah everywhere I see
The black and blue uniforms, Police and Priests

Banana Republic, Septic Isle
Sufferin' in the screamin' sea, sounds like cryin'
Everywhere I go, yeah everywhere I see

Great Irishman Bob, was to go on to great things too.

bodhrandude · 29-01-2017 04:44PM

maryishere wrote: »

People like Bob Geldof started the ball rolling about 1980 or thereabouts with the song "Banana Republic" , which was a protest song about the corruption etc of some of our politicians, planners etc.

Along with the Police's Invisible Sun.

Ferrari3600 · 29-01-2017 05:03PM

ToddyDoody wrote: »

There was a pop song on the radio that mentioned the word 'horny' several hundred times - a truly revolutionary period.

Whigfield's Saturday Night was another classic.

pablo128 · 29-01-2017 05:05PM

Ferrari3600 wrote: »

Whigfield's Saturday Night was another classic.

2unlimited. Catchy as fcuk but you wouldn't have caught me dead dancing to it back in the day.:pac:

r93kaey5p2izun · 29-01-2017 05:47PM

Panrich wrote: »

The church began to lose its grip on society in the 80s. It was the first decade that most young people attended university.I remember back to the 70s and literally half of kids left school after the inter cert to take up a trade or just because they didn't have to go any more.
The points race began in the late 70s and women were no longer looking at jobs as a stopgap until they got married.

The early 80s saw everyone tooling up academically for emigration and the knock on effects were that a more educated and liberal leaning generation emerged. The 90s boom saw a lot of that 80s generation return home to start to raise their families. The earlier emigrants from the 50s - 70s never had that chance.

Was it though? From my perspective this seems highly unlikely and I would view third level education as remaining out of reach of the majority until the late 90s. Outside of my colleagues I don't know anyone over 40 who went to college. I realise my perspective on this is no doubt shaped by my own background. But did most or even close to half of young people really go to college in the 80s? That seems incredible to me

29-01-2017 05:47PM

I was a child at the time, really idyllic period looking back. Maybe most people see their first 10 years like that though. Particularly around 1996 - 1999 (what I can most remmeber of course) just seems like an era when the adult population was worry-free by and large. For adults of the time things must have seemed great in comparison to times earlier to it. I myself spent a lot of the time watching cartoons and playing the sega/playstation, but also playing around outdoors. I think technology was just about at the level that kids still got to have a childhood like in times before it (eg. playing outside a lot, not being exposed to stuff they shouldn't be exposed to on the internet etc.). Lttle memories like hearing the (old) Sunday Game theme tune, eating (invariably) rasberry ripple ice-cream and jelly as a treat after Sunday dinner, stick in my head! One thing I remember is how strong an impression American popular culture made on me and my peers back then - caps turned backwards, basketball, thinking the definition of cool would be to have sunglasses and a skateboard etc. Japanese popular culture seemed big too, especially during the late 90s and early 2000s with the likes of pokemon, dragonball z among other stuff. As ireland got richer during the 2000s, this looking outwards for cool popular culture seemed to die down (or maybe I just got older!)

Ubbquittious · 29-01-2017 06:26PM

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

Indeed. It was near the end of the 90's when I started using the internet but that time it was an altogether different place. Chat rooms and USENET groups were abuzz with like-minded people. If you got chatting to someone you immediately had something in common because you pretty much had to have an interest in computers and technology to get online. Kind of like amateur radio

First you had AOL, then you had myspace, followed by bebo and finally Facebook. Things got progressively worse each time

Commotion Ocean · 29-01-2017 06:31PM

JupiterKid wrote: »

What about the 60s and 70s? Was the 80s not all economic gloom, mass emigration, crap roads and super-corrupt politicos in charge?

Allen Yellow Hobo wrote: »

Having been around since the 40s, I think the 80s were the real decade of noticeable change in Ireland.

Those decades may have been poorer back then than we are now.

They might have had less money but they didn't have the debt that we have now. That's the main difference.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 29-01-2017 06:51PM

dfeo wrote: »

Those decades may have been poorer back then than we are now.

They might have had less money but they didn't have the debt that we have now. That's the main difference.

You're joking right? Our national debt in the 80s reached 142%

29-01-2017 07:04PM

I almost never cry/well-up watching movies, tv shows etc. but one thing that does cause me to well-up a bit is watching the original performance of Riverdance at Eurovision 1994. It's as if it represents Ireland coming of age or something, the dawn of a new happier time in Ireland, the boom just about to take off - just a mixture of a lot of connotations fire off in my mind when I watch it and it makes me well up.

catbear · 29-01-2017 07:18PM

The 80s were my coming of age years and they were crap. Emigration was accepted fact, it is actually progress that in the last recent wave people question why it should happen at all!

I'd got over to the states in the late 80s and back then it was really easy to stay on illegally, the option was there. You'd hand in your Irish driving license, sit a written test and then you'd have a valid ID that would get you back and across the canadian border so you could fly home.

Anyhow i returned to Ireland and even though I'd given up on great opportunity there I never regretted it, even though it meant a few years on the dole and CE schemes before I got properly going. By the mid 90s economically Ireland was really picking and by the end of the decade it was 24/7/365 party central!

The big moment for me though was hearing of the first IRA ceasefire, I can still remember the exact time and spot when I heard the news. I felt the same way about the hearing the result of the marriage referendum, something massive was happening.

My point is good times aren't about what age you are, but about the age you in. For example in the early 90s people still weren't positive about the economy and their prospects even though all the indications were there, the grey 80s still lingered in peoples minds.

For me the late 90s were a zenith to the nadir of the mid 80s. For me things started going to **** again after 2002 when the bubble takes over everything and everyone and now we are potentially burning off that era to start the whole cycle again.

Galwayguy35 · 29-01-2017 07:56PM

The summer of 1990 was the best ever, great atmosphere around the country during the World Cup.

infogiver · 29-01-2017 08:04PM

JupiterKid wrote: »

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.

Do you feel that Irish society has benefited by the opening of a sex shop? How so?

Mouseslayer17 · 29-01-2017 08:15PM

80s were a bleak time
Heroin unemployment
90s things picked up,people started getting big ideas then

catbear · 29-01-2017 08:18PM

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

The summer of 1990 was the best ever, great atmosphere around the country during the World Cup.

I missed it being an emigrant in the USA where I have to constantly fight with barmen to not switch over to baseball!

jonnny68 · 29-01-2017 08:21PM

The 90's was all about the Rave scene

29-01-2017 08:26PM

jonnny68 wrote: »

The 90's was all about the Rave scene

Best thing about the 90s was the music, house, techno, breakbeat etc. Particularly the early 90s when it was all so exciting and energising. Course by the late 90s we were hearing a little too much trance, garage etc. and rave was sliding into the background.

Widdershins · 29-01-2017 08:28PM

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.:)

That's stark reading. Makes you realise how different things were.

JupiterKid · 01-02-2017 12:15AM

Also the equality (in terms of work and the provision of goods and services) legislation was a product of the 1990s and rape within marriage was finally outlawed during that decade.

The 1990s whatever way you look at it was a decade of huge change in Ireland.

DanielODonnell · 01-02-2017 02:51AM

I was born in 1992, I have a good memory so I have memories of 1996 onwards, it wasn't that different, I spent most of the time watching disney VHS tapes, playing the Playstation and looking underneath barbie dolls clothes.
I then took a keen interest in the GAA in 1999 and would watch players like Joe Brolly and Anthony Tohill, I don't have a keen interest in the GAA nowadays. I recall how my older brother would listen to rave music, most people seemed to, I often wonder if there were many extreme metal fans at the time, in this country.

laugh · 01-02-2017 04:22AM

I liked Oasis and Blur in my yoof. I haven't intentionally listened to Oasis for 10+ years.

Saw Blur at Electric Picnic and they were great.

01-02-2017 06:01AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

Also the equality (in terms of work and the provision of goods and services) legislation was a product of the 1990s and rape within marriage was finally outlawed during that decade.

The 1990s whatever way you look at it was a decade of huge change in Ireland.

Section 5 of the Criminal Law Rape Act 1990 has seen 2 convictions. I am not sure that it was more significant than, say, the Criminal Law Rape Act of 1981, or made more news.

For me the biggest development in rape law in the 1990s was not legislative at all, but the public focus on sentencing following rape victim Lavinia Kerwick's protest.

The Equal Status Act which extended the idea of equality outside merely the workplace was 2000.

darkdubh · 01-02-2017 06:20AM

I was 16 in 1990 and and had stopped going to mass a few years earlier. The Bishop Casey thing was the first big scandal to hit the catholic church in the 90's and I remember it being a big deal but it was totally overshadowed by what was to come.

The 1990s - Ireland's 1960s?

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