The 70's and 80's in Ireland

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

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.

I wrote about this in another thread last year in a similar thread. Basically no I wouldn't go back because my life is enjoyable, but I had a happy childhood in the 70's (apart from the nuns who I did NOT like). What you didn't have you didn't miss so long as you had loving parents, enough to eat, good friends and a stable home life.

Dad worked and Mum stayed home, that was the norm then. Dad was a toy salesman and able to run a home on one income...impossible for all but the very wealthiest today.

I don't remember it as being grey and depressing. The town I grew up in was far more vibrant then than what it is today, as is the case for many towns in rural Ireland. I miss the safety and low crime rates of Ireland back then.

I'd only time travel back to the 80's for one purpose if I knew what I know now-to travel to the GDR and look for my fiancee so I could have met him sooner. That's the one regret I have in life, and I know he feels likewise.

I know the local town nearest us was a lot more Busy well the Main Street anyway in the 80,s .
loads of small independent shops doing good.

Friday/Saturday mornings would have a great buzz in the town with Country people coming in to do the shopping and catching up with the weeks gossip. Groups of men standing around chatting while the women did the shopping.
It certainly wasn’t grey or dull compared to now , it’s gone from having 24 different businesses down to one small convenience store, two pubs and one hardware shop. The shop is currently on its last legs as well and the Main Street is now full of Boarded up Shops and generally run down.

So while we seen great improvement in shopping centres and retail parks the Main Streets of rural Irish town are dead.

The national anthem played when they shut down RTE television for the night

We could occasionally get the British channels. Like a few weeks a year. Someone told me high pressure in the atmosphere, was probably bull****ting me. But it was very random and then they would go without warning


We had election songs! Leo Varadkar is no master of spin, I haven’t heard an election song in years

mikemac2 wrote: »

.............................We had election songs! Leo Varadkar is no master of spin, I haven’t heard an election song in years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih9m0WvAwFo

Thanks:rolleyes: that's going to be in my head all day.

Someone in the youtube comments came up with some more appropriate lyrics:

From Paris shops to Abbeville's doors
The luxurious feel of pure silk roars
In diplomatic bags to Leinster Ho-o-u-se
We'll rise and follow Charvet...

In Charvet shirts, we sing as one
In Charvet shirts, we sing along
In Charvet shirts, we march along
We’ll rise and follow Charvet!

Grandeeod wrote: »

Us 70s/80s kids/teens have a much varied view of the time and that's okay. Some had a **** time and some had a nice enough time. So it wasn't all doom and gloom everywhere. Now I'm not trying to be some peace broker by any means, because you can never really solve the issues between rural Ireland, Dublin and places like Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford in relation to the time period.

Where Ireland really fell behind in a somewhat fooked up manner was infrastructure. We had a landline in a Dublin council estate in the early 80s and you had to ring the operator to connect to England. Digital exchanges were only being introduced. Took a few years to get it all going. Our road network was well below par, but little projects like the Naas bypass motorway, were big news for us. The 80s also delivered the initial DART service. Where the fook would we be today without it.

As for sport, the 80s really delivered the worst of times for Ireland. Whatever about Croke Park etc. the international sports of rugby and soccer highlighted our inabilities. While Landsdowne road built a new East stand and nearly kept up with our neighbours, some of our soccer internationals were held in diabolical conditions. In early '85 we brought Italy to Dalymount Park and it was disgraceful stuff. The pitch was worse than my back garden. The overcrowding and organisation was pure bad. An absolute clusterfook.

But all that said we managed to hold groundbreaking Eurovision Song Contests in 1982 and 1988. The Simmonscourt in the RDS gave us that and many many live concerts from major international acts. I often talk to my friends from Eastern Europe like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and compare the 80's there to the 80's in Ireland. Ireland was way ahead despite our doom and gloom perception and their soviet union restrictions. I guess the Irish adore self loathing and want to look at the recent past as being the start of any kind of past.

On infrastructure, it'll still be decades before we catch up.

Comparing Ireland to the second world in the 80s is kind of moot. The comparison should be with western Europe at the time

mikemac2 wrote: »

The national anthem played when they shut down RTE television for the night

We could occasionally get the British channels. Like a few weeks a year. Someone told me high pressure in the atmosphere, was probably bull****ting me. But it was very random and then they would go without warning


We had election songs! Leo Varadkar is no master of spin, I haven’t heard an election song in years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih9m0WvAwFo

Jayus.... I more more worried about sweets and Milky Bars at that stage.
That song is unbelievable. It has those 'Republican Vibes' he like to cultivate alright.

Not as catchy as this song though:

NewbridgeIR wrote: »

Nobody wants the gory details but "incident" is meaningless.


Deaths can be categorised as

Suicide / accident / suspicious e.g murder or assault / natural causes

One of the above should be used when reporting

Suicide is still called “ died tragically “

NewbridgeIR wrote: »

Not necessarily - however it would be nice if the facts could be reported not some bullsh*t euphemisms.

Facts can be reported when facts have been established, like at a Coroner's Inquest. Don't expect Irish Rail to be establishing facts when their focus is getting the trains running again.

4ensic15 wrote: »

Sex in ireland began in 1962, the year the Late late show started.

According to Charlie's dad, it was Teilifis Eireann that started it all, not the Late Late specifically.


https://stillslibrary.rte.ie/indexplus/image/2460/017.html

mrsdewinter wrote: »

Suicide isn't the only realm where the brutal reality of what's happened are skirted over. Ask any court reporter. They have to listen to reams of disgusting details and all that will appear in the paper is 'a sexual assault occurred'. Overall, I think it's a good approach.

I take it you haven't been following the gory details of the Ana Kriegel murder trial then?

freshpopcorn wrote: »

During the debate on decriminalisation of Homosexuality in the Dáil in 1993, he agreed with a statement by Brendan McGahon which reads: "Homosexuality is a departure from normality and while homosexuals deserve our compassion they do not deserve our tolerance" and who described homosexuals as being "like lefthand drivers driving on the right-hand side of the road."

Ahern himself added: "Will we eventually see the day in this country when, as has happened in the USA, homosexuals will seek the right to adopt children? We should think seriously about this possibility". Following his appointment as Minister responsible for equality, Ahern refused to be drawn on the matter and did not give an answer as to whether he still held these opinions

Ahern was responsible for introducing legislation recognising civil partnerships for same-sex couples. He declared the legislation (Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010), which passed into law in July 2010, as "one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation to be enacted since independence."[24]

We really have moved on a lot. My teenager was in the room when First Dates was on, and two guys had their first kiss to much cute awwwing from my teen. It was just normal and natural - nothing strange or unusual, which is such a long way off my teens, where gay people were objects of fun in BBC sitcoms or Carry On films.

cgcsb wrote: »

My understanding of the time was that the economy was based on protectionism, state companies had law makers on their side. Outsiders couldn't set up competitive operations. I think this is illustrated quite well by Are Lingus, in the 80s there was talk of banning 'foreign' airlines from package holidays to protect the state airline, which could fly you to London for a months average wages. Then the pds came along Ryanair started, talk of a commercial tv station(which didn't emerge until 10 years later)

Ryanair started at least a year before the PDs appeared, so they can't claim credit there.

branie2 wrote: »

RTE used to start its broadcasting day in the afternoon in the 80s

There was no Garrihy sisters/Kathryn Thomas shouting either. Sounds like good times to me.

freshpopcorn wrote: »

There was no Garrihy sisters/Kathryn Thomas shouting either. Sounds like good times to me.

But we had talent like Twink thinking she could impersonate Maggie Thatcher and people thought Nell McCafferty was great gas on the Late Late because she would say something about contraceptives

harr wrote: »

I know the local town nearest us was a lot more Busy well the Main Street anyway in the 80,s .
loads of small independent shops doing good.

Same for the town I grew up in. In the 70s and 80s there were small independent shops filling the town where everyone shopped and there was real life to rural towns and villages. Now in my town there's closed and boarded up shops just as you said, that are left crumble and look grotty and dirty.

When I was a child Mum shopped for meat in the local butchers (closed now), groceries in a locally owned independent shop (closed), got the milk delivered by the milkman every morning (no more), fish from the fishmongers (closed) or straight off the boat in summer, bread from a local bakery (closed), fruit and veg from a greengrocer (guess what)... now Tesco, Lidl and Aldi and shopping centres take the place of small local businesses and I think we are worse off for it. The life blood has been drained from much of rural Ireland.

Yes we have a few new local businesses that have taken their place but you can see they are struggling with competition from the supermarkets.

harr wrote: »

So while we seen great improvement in shopping centres and retail parks the Main Streets of rural Irish town are dead.

And don't forget bookies, charity shops and Gold for Cash places. :rolleyes: The thriving local businesses, charm, individual character and sense of tight knit communities supporting each other has vanished in many towns. It's a tragedy IMO.

We pour our money into out of town shopping centres and foreign supermarkets so all the profits leave the country while the main streets shops close. Do we have to get to the level it has happened in the UK with the death of the high street there where you have bland identikit towns full of the same chain stores, fast food joints and supermarkets and all local shops and individual character vanish completely so you could be in any town, before we do something about it?

I was stopped by some English tourists the other day looking for a shop to buy some groceries and when I mentioned Tesco they said they refuse to shop there.
All of them. How many Irish people have you heard say that?
I know there has been a backlash against the building of more Tescos and shopping centres in many English towns to try to protect their local businesses in the last few years and a movement towards supporting local again.

When are we going to wake up and do the same and start objecting to planning permission being granted for yet another bloody Tesco or shopping centres with the same UK/US chain stores and multinationals?

road_high wrote: »

Fact- where I grew up there was a ton of horrible one off housing built but in contrast the local small town really struggles. All this housing should have been forced into our small villages and towns to create a critical mass of people and services. All these people seem to do all their business and socializing in the nearest big town

Ya they should all be forced to socialise with TJ PJ Bridie and the rest of the village idiots who spend the week looking forward to Winning Streak

cgcsb wrote: »

The one who couldn't speak with her eyes open calling women 'mistresses' needed a very stern clatter as did the man who was 'besotted with backsides'

I'd love to see what some of these people are at Today.
I think one of the at 4:00 appeared again during the marriage referendum.