Where were you when...

In work. A guy showed my an image of the twin towers smoking. I said I had seen Towering Inferno and was not a fan of the Bruce Willis type of film. He said it was real. We watched it in work on TV for hours, then went home. In traffic it was obvious everyone was listing to their car radio.

I am old enough to remember when John Kennedy was shot. In those days there were not many TVs, and programs only ran for a few hours at night. There was no TV reporting from the USA. It was about a day before we knew he was shot dead.

9/11. Was in school, history class, using staples and elastic bands against the other table when the teacher walked in and told us WW3 had just started. Switches on the TV to see the commotion. All sorts of rumours were going around.

were ye reenacting a battle when your teacher gave you the news?

September 11th - I was InterRailing around Austria. That night, I phoned my Dad for the Champions League results. He said all the games were postponed because two planes hit the Twin Towers.

I asked him if there was dense fog over Manhattan and why didn't the Air Traffic Controllers tell the pilots they were flying dangerously. Then he said that the planes were flown into the Twin Towers. Ran back to the hotel and turned on CNN.

Lady Diana - I was sitting at home after getting the Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire ferry. I had been at Manchester United v Coventry City. All the broadcasters interrupted their scheduled programming.

Gulf War/Desert Storm - everyone knew it was coming. My Dad woke me up at around 2am to say that Baghdad was getting pounded.

My father told me about the Gulf war when I got up in the morning.

Pope resignation and plenty others - at work.

AF447 - at home, I had just moved to Dublin from Italy and was in the job-hunting process.

2011 Japan Earthquake - obviously...working, night time deployment and at the precise moment the earthquake struck, I was in a conference call that included one of the girls in the Tokyo office. She very calmly excused herself, saying "apologies - we need to evacuate". We thought it was a fire drill or something, until somebody checked the news when she didn't come back online some 20 minutes later. She sent a message later on saying she was OK and on her way home to everyone's relief.

Now the big one - 9/11; I was working in Italy at the time...in an office building that was part of a NATO / US military facility. At some point my boss goes "she thinks it's April 1st...my wife just texted me there was an explosion at the Twin Towers and they were knocked down!". We all went "oh, she's got great imagination!" until somebody tried to check the news and discovered the Internet was pretty much down. Literally 5 minutes later a group of soldiers marched into the room, declared the building was under reasonable threat of an attack and proceeded to evacuation.

Also, believe it or not, I was a wee lad at the time but I remember the Chernobyl disaster being announced on TV, the people rushing to buy every kind of food supplies and whatnot.

The main ones ...

Elvis died.
My mum came into our bedroom to tell me and my brother The King had died. She was ironing in the kitchen at the time.

Bobby Sand died.
Got up for breakfast before school and mum said 'everything would be okay'. Didn't know what she was on about until I went into the kitchen and saw the news on our little B&W portable tele in the kitchen. Still went to school though in Belfast (East).

9/11.
My brother rang me in work to tell me about the attacks. Didn't really cop on what he was muttering on about until he told me mum and dad were in New York visiting (forgotten about that). Took them a while to get home, but at least they were unharmed.

Where were you when they built the ladder to heaven

Hillsborough.

I was sitting on our kitchen floor watching the game while my mother was making dinner.

I couldn't understand what was happening and she switched the TV off and told me to go outside and play.

The news was on when we were sitting down to dinner and when the reports of deaths started coming in I was even more confused as to why people died at a football match.

I could see tears in her eyes as she tried explaining what happened.

It's my first really clear memory of football and when I think about it now it's like I'm back in the kitchen again sitting on the floor.

Gratzi22 wrote: »

Bobby Sand died.
Got up for breakfast before school and mum said 'everything would be okay'. Didn't know what she was on about until I went into the kitchen and saw the news on our little B&W portable tele in the kitchen. Still went to school though in Belfast (East).
.

I would have sworn that Bobby Sands died on a Saturday (or at least it made the papers on the Saturday) and I was with my parents going through Bandon. My dad went into the shop to get ice cream and came out with the paper and the news.

Turns out he died on a Tuesday in May. I must have been in school. Memory is not reliable.

Where were you when you were Sh1t

Where were you, where you when you were Sh1t

I also recall what I was doing when I heard the news of JFK, Bobby Sands and Diana deaths. Likewise the Dublin/Monaghan bombings and Bloody Sunday. it seems such tragic events live long in the memory.

9/11 was in college in Galway, strolling into town with a mate when we ran into a couple of friends & were chatting. One of them got a text message saying a plane had hit the world trade center. We went to a tv store around the corner. People were just watching in stunned silence. Went home after a while & was glued to the tv coverege

Diana - had been up late / all-night I think watching a Formula 1 when BBC were breaking the story of her being in a car crash - before she was confirmed killed.