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Child Item

The 70's and 80's in Ireland

Kermit.de.frog

What was it like in the 1980's in Ireland?

I have seen pictures, video and my god it looked like a depressing place. :eek:

Grey, delapidated, hopeless.

What was it like? How did you get by without internets, wheelie bins, toilets...?

Would you go back if you could??

*Might as well throw in the 70's too for people of that vintage.

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whiskeyman

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Everything was orange and brown

Except for dog poo.

Dog poo was white!

:pac:

nullzero

Pretty drab and depressing, not like the world we saw in American movies of the time where everything seemed an awful lot better, probably why people still clung to anything American back then.

Food was an awful lot simpler, it seemed like everyone was having mince or chops for dinner, you could smell it coming out of every house in the evenings, even simple things like pasta or pizza seemed extremely exotic, we had simpler pallets to put it mildly.

Oh and smog from the coal fires in the winter, hard to believe how smokey the air was in a relatively modern era, all changed in the early 90's with smokeless coal and people relying more on their central heating.

It wasn't all doom and gloom but I definitely remember feeling like we had progressed an awful lot as a country by the mid 90's.

Marcusm

topper75 wrote: »

I can't pretty up unemployment for anyone.

But the high rates meant little or no speculation in the housing side of things.

If you did get that job, then a house would follow. The mortgage deposit % wasn't as rigourous something like 10%. Yes the monthly repayments would be rough. But it was at least ATTAINABLE. Big difference to today.

It is pointless looking back at a historical period saying Oh they had no X like we have today. We didn't know about it back then, and what you don't know ...

An Irish CB ran the rate for the punt. It was a currency/rate for OUR economy, not for a depressed German banking sector or a roaring Parisian property market. It was ours. By us, for us.
And our politicians gave that away without ever asking us.

Did you miss the referendum on the Maastricht treaty?

freshpopcorn

Something I'd love to know is how happy were people then compared to now!

oceanman

I remember being able to go to the pub nearly every night for a few jars with my pals, great times, couldn't afford to do that these days...very little work around but loads of nixers!

zapitastas

British army patrols and checkpoints, helicopters, RUC making snarky comments, older lads out throwing stuff at them. Everything seemed pretty exciting

Your Face

It was tough OP.
After the alien invasion you couldn't get turf anywhere.

BBFAN

Toilets?? Who on earth told you we didn't have toilets in the 80's????

[Deleted User]

freshpopcorn wrote: »

Something I'd love to know is how happy were people then compared to now!

I was very happy back then. I was young and life was one big exciting adventure. Reality hit in the late 80’s with me responsible for 2 small children alone. But, I think that you have to go through the bad times to appreciate how lucky you are.
I’m happy now, but it’s a different kind of happiness. My kids are reared. I’m married to a great man. I’m no longer curious about things like I was as a teenager.
I’ve got much more material things, like a house, car, mobile phone, internet etc...

freshpopcorn

BBFAN wrote: »

Toilets?? Who on earth told you we didn't have toilets in the 80's????

I know a few people who didn't get toilets until the 1990's and even the 2000's!

BBFAN

freshpopcorn wrote: »

I know a few people who didn't get toilets until the 1990's and even the 2000's!

Okay...….. well as someone who lived through the 70's and 80's we never didn't have a toilet. In the 70's maybe we didn't have a bath but always had a toilet. Where do you think people did their business????

dxhound2005

cajonlardo wrote: »

In the late 70s I went into A&E with broken bones in my hand . This was about 10 am. X-rayed, bones set and plaster and home in time for dinner. You'd be lucky to get out in 12 hours now.

There is an extra 1.5 million people in the country now, and probably not a commensurate increase in health provision. But it is possible that a great number of patients are being treated promptly.

These days there is so much misery laden reportage that it is likely giving a skewed image of the overall position. Nobody will bother telling the media if they had an experience like yours yesterday, whereas a few hundred waiting on trolleys occupies most of the news for the whole month of January every year.

denismc

I remember the news from the 80's was pretty full on,
You had;
Shergar,
Hunger Strikes,
Kidnappings,
The Border Fox
Bombings every other day
Kerry Babies,
Moving Statues,
Charlie Haughy
Cold War shenanigans.

These days Serena Wiliams throwing strops on a tennis court is what passes for news, what dull times we live in.

freshpopcorn

BBFAN wrote: »

Okay...….. well as someone who lived through the 70's and 80's we never didn't have a toilet. In the 70's maybe we didn't have a bath but always had a toilet. Where do you think people did their business????

I'm reffeing to people in rural areas so generally in a hole or ditch. Some where away from the house.
They probably had a commode in the house for night time/etc.

hairyslug

We had an orange Austin Allegro and I had none of my own new clothes, everything was hand me downs from all the older kids in the neighbourhood.

BBFAN

Anyway, back on topic. I was fairly happy in the 70's because I was a kid but I don't think it was a happy time for my parents, I remember my mother crying a lot and my father wasn't a very happy man. We as kids though had great craic playing on the street for at least 8 hours every day.

Got better in the 80's and I was even happier as a teenager.

Earned 34.50 per week in my first job, gave 10 to my mother, bought new clothes or make up and went out at least 4 times a week, ah happy days. Great music, great buzz around Dublin, plenty of opportunity to meet people in the flesh.

I suppose the downside was if you were any way different life was really really **** for you during those times. The church were still telling people what was acceptable and what wasn't. The fact that I was a straight female made it very easy for me.

Also, heroin was an absolute curse that killed so many back then. I suppose it's still a huge problem now but doesn't seem to kill as many people? Also AIDS was a big problem and was killing people. It's not killing people now thank god.

Yester

Black shoes. White socks. Oh yeah!

Loves_lorries

Lower expectations, holidays abroad were unheard of etc

freshpopcorn

Yester wrote: »

Black shoes. White socks. Oh yeah!

Sounds like the local guys who call around selling knives, socks, gates and looking for scrap metal Today.

dxhound2005

Shoe polish.

Ipso

Yester wrote: »

Black shoes. White socks. Oh yeah!

With a track suit!

BBFAN

Yester wrote: »

Black shoes. White socks. Oh yeah!

And the socks had to be sparkling white!!!

hot buttered scones

We had toilets. No wheelie bins - no bin charges either. No internets - we played games. Ball games, board games, running and chasing games, card games. We communicated by talking to each other and calling into each others houses. You could make plans to meet someone a week or two before and they would more than likely turn up. Music was great and so were the clothes. Then again, I was a kid. I'd say it was fairly sh1t for me mam and dad. Mortgage interest rates were ridiculous and income tax was through the roof. We were luckier than a lot though - had a house, dad had a stable job (although he had to work loads of overtime). We still didn't have much though. There was a strong focus on education in our house, which I'm very grateful for. You could have a night out on a tenner, which was good.

Mongfinder General

The pubs were always full. Massive unemployment but also a massive black economy like today. There was huge tax evasion and the average worker was taking a massive paye hit. Gaelic football was great. Kerry, Offaly and a Dublin team that came out of nowhere in the mid 80’s.
Clueless gombeen politicians. Hunger Strikers. The Maze escape. Inflation. Rte 1 and Rte 2. Martin Cahill. Bohs v Rangers 1984. The Stardust Fire. Charlie Haughey telling us to tighten our belts. Knock Airport. Joyriders. The Tallaght Two. Heroin. The DART. Blue leathered seating on buses. Bosco. Large bottles of Guinness. Stonewashed jeans. Doc martens

Yester

Mongfinder General wrote: »

Clueless gombeen politicians. Hunger Strikers. The Maze escape. Inflation. Rte 1 and Rte 2. Martin Cahill. Bohs v Rangers 1984. The Stardust Fire. Charlie Haughey telling us to tighten our belts. Knock Airport. Joyriders. The Tallaght Two. Heroin. The DART. Blue leathered seating on buses. Bosco. Large bottles of Guinness. Stonewashed jeans. Doc martens

We didn't start the fire....

BrianD3

I was thinking about some 70s/80s things recently and was browsing some teletext pages extracted from old VHS recordings. If you lived in an area with "piped" TV or you had a huge aerial on your roof AND you had a TV with a teletext decoder (my family only got one in 1991), this was your "internet" in 1989.

http://www.uniquecodeanddata.co.uk/teletext76/bbc1-19881029/

If this was around today I'd still use it

hot buttered scones

Ipso wrote:

And walking or cycling to school (granted there are more cars on the roads these days).

But we had f3ck all in our school bags. I was walking to and from school over a mile away or getting the bus from the age of 8

dxhound2005

It was hardly any surprise that there was a shortfall in taxes versus spending. When FF had got the biggest majority ever by abolishing property tax, a couple of years earlier.

hot buttered scones

nullzero wrote:

It wasn't all doom and gloom but I definitely remember feeling like we had progressed an awful lot as a country by the mid 90's.

I miss the mid 90s. I was in my late teens/ early 20s and in college. Fun times. I could rent a flat in Dublin for Â£50 a week, and I was out 2 or 3 nights a week. The world just seemed so exciting and full of oppurtunity. There seemed to be a very positive vibe around the place. And I could skull a rake of pints and still get up early in the morning. Good times

[Deleted User]

hot buttered scones wrote: »

I miss the mid 90s. I was in my late teens/ early 20s and in college. Fun times. I could rent a flat in Dublin for £50 a week, and I was out 2 or 3 nights a week. The world just seemed so exciting and full of oppurtunity. There seemed to be a very positive vibe around the place. And I could skull a rake of pints and still get up early in the morning. Good times

I think when most people look back, their late teens/college years are the happiest. It’s a time of blossoming, learning, experimenting, become a person in their own right.