The 70's and 80's in Ireland

People watched rte , bbc, itv, everyone watched neighbours, top of the pops, the late late show glenroe. No mobile phones, maybe one land-line in the hallway. No housing crisis. I think people were less materialistic. Now people will spend a fortune on expensive clothes , iPhones. It was common for people to have 3 or 4 kids. Posh people had a Sony TV and a vcr. Now gen z has social media and 100s of TV channels. Now There's an endless range of media to watch streaming TV, YouTube. Of course now even bathelors walk tv show looks old fashioned no smartphones. Young people were optimistic, yes many young people went to USA or UK to work. People listened to radio Luxembourg or the bbc for pop music or pirate radio stations before 2fm was launched. It was easy to get a flat in rathmines, rent was cheap. Now even people with good jobs struggle to find a flat to rent. Yes it was not a good time for women's rights, the Catholic Church had great power.

Posh people would go the expensive restaurants , drive a BMW car, it was a more equal society. It was not so common for young people to go to university. If you were interested in tech you were a nerd, now everyone has a laptop or a tablet.

There were some mighty efforts to receive UK channels back in the 70's and 80's.

If you look here on Google maps and zoom in the fields behind the bungalow you'll see a pretty large receiving dish which I believe was used to get the channels.

Looks like a very old (early 80s) C-band satellite dish that's partly fallen over, to me. Used to be very popular in the US but wasn't much to see on them in Europe.

You need as much height as possible to get far away terrestrial TV, it doesn't really carry beyond the horizon. Reception from very far off was a bit easier in the old 405-line VHF days but subject to interference. My dad in the 60s (before I was born) has a massive Band I VHF aerial on a big pole behind the house to get b/w BBC from Divis, we're in Dublin! As far back as I can remember we had a colour TV and cable though.

I remember when RTE2 came along the remains of the massive aerial were removed and we got a little UHF one just for RTE, as a backup to the cable as it failed regularly enough, there'd at least be something to watch.

Some mad Irish aerials for UK TV here:

This is what was used to get UK channels for Limerick cable TV in the 80s (the height is provided by the mountain it's sitting on) :

Some areas of East Germany had mad aerials to get Western TV too. At first this could get you in trouble but after a while there were so many aerials pointing west the authorities gave up about doing anything about them.

If you lived in Dublin the majority had UK tv channels and I am pretty sure satellite channels were about in 1988 if not earlier. Sky was mostly a channel with repeats of old TV shows and music programs along with Super Channel which showed a great Dutch show that was like top of the pops but the bands seem to do full shows. MTV came on at midnight sometimes on one of the channels.

People saying the 80s were optimistic times is a bit shocking. I assumed I would have to emigrate as did most of us. Nuclear war felt like a real possibility more so than now. Aids was not exactly a cheery thought. Economically Ireland was in real trouble. We wouldn't be doing so well if it wasn't for financial incentives that brought in companies into Ireland.

The things is people were much more about making the best out of what was about and not bothered about status. The 90s changed so much and status was a big deal for many.

I'd say most people who had UK channels had cable.

In my experience 70 and 80 people were not unhappy. But there was lower standard of living compared to what came after.

There was also a lot of gloom and doom around with drug epidemics, crime, thread of nuclear war, aids, famines etc. Much of which has subsided afterwards. There was also more opportunity afterwards.

We lived in Sandyford... a fair height above the city and we originally had two TV antennas in the attic - one beaming North for UTV and BBC NI and one facing east for HTV. We were so close to 3 Rock, that RTE TV could be received by both antennas, even though they were not pointed in the right direction (my dad joked that we could have used a piece of damp string to receive it).

In 1981, I remember experimenting with a home cut wire dipole antenna in the attic to pick up the pirate TV station 'Channel D'. The station was operated by 'Dr' Don Moore (RIP) of the pirate radio station ARD (Alternative Radio Dublin, 257 Meters). By then we had moved into the era of cable TV (The Pipe), provided locally by either Phoenix relays or Marlin relays (later incorporated into RTE relays - then Cablelink, NTL, Virgin). The pirate station used the same frequency as BBC 2 on the cable system and you would notice a 'jump' in the signal when they switched on, if you then unplugged 'the pipe' and connected in your separate antenna, Channel D would then be received. The transmission site for the pirate TV station was The State Cinema, in Phibsboro and it simply consisted of a transmitter and a video recorder for playout (video recorder/players were very high tech, and rare at the time)

For me, the 70's and 80's in Ireland were dominated by pirate broadcasting.... obviously radio, but also TV.

See below - Channel D footage at T 4:19

"the pipe" 😄 was what everyone called it, when I first heard the phrase "cable TV" it sounded weird!

When my mother was feeling a bit posh she called it "the communal aerial". There actually was a "communal aerial" before I was born, one of the nearby houses had a massive tower at the end of the garden and used to supply all the neighbouring houses before there was proper cabl... I mean pipe! The rusty remains were still there in the 80s.

We were regarded as well posh because we had a phone due to my dad's job. He was in the army and they'd ring him if a war started 🤣 Even in the late 80s we still got people knocking at the door offering 20p and asking to use the phone. All our neighbours eventually got phones in the late 80s but some of them had been waiting for over ten years at that stage! It's hard to imagine not being able to get a phone but even in Dublin there were simply no lines available until they brought digital phone exchanges in.

My dad had a "phone voice". Whenever he was talking on the phone he sounded totally different. I think people of that generation were brought up to think that phones were for posh people and you needed to "talk proper" if you were using one, lest you be found out as one of the hoi polloi 😁

Many people in dublin had aerials on the roof, with a small amplifier, they got itv, bbc 1,2, c4 , before cable tv was widely avaidable

and it was free. before cable tv if you wanted to,you could put up a satellite dish, and get loads of free english tv channels, before sky tv was launched .

before 2fm ,if you wanted to hear pop music your choice was pirate radio, radio luxembourg on medium wave, people would tape music off the radio on cassette . the sony radio walkman was a big deal when it was launched. most rural houses had a large aerial on the roof to get a good rte signal, or maybe to get bbc tv from northern ireland.

...you forgot jumpers for goalposts Ron.

Was "hedge porn" a thing in Ireland? It definitely was in the UK in the 70s/80s.

I imagine the stuff was too difficult to obtain here to casually dispose of it.

it was definitely a thing.

We had a video man who came around with a load of pirated movies in his car boot 😄 he even had the exorcist when it was still banned

You could buy a magazine and there would be a cassette sellotaped onto it. Some new amazing band I'm sure

Hard hitting public safety ads. Granddad drowned. Your dog killed sheep. Young lad electrocuted by the ESB.

Holy hour in the pub. Pubs closed after Mass but they just pulled the blind down tbh

Money tight. If you had clear plastic covers on your books you were rich. If you had wallpaper you were poor. Yep, we were poor.

Your village had a garda station and the garda knew every family, every backroad and lived in the community. Image that, what a concept! Some say the recession in 2008 killed that, nope it was dieing out before then.

Hitchking, does nobody hitchhike anymore? I regularly did this at the crossroads. People even put their arms across their chest to show they saw you but could not take you as they were not going the full way, sound

New car regs in 1987. I have no clue how old car regs worked and the Brits still have that system. I am told it is easy but I do not know.

Go to school on a deathtrap yellow Bus Scoile, the cast-offs from CIE from the 1950´s. Buses so bad even CIE wanted rid. Holes in the floor, leaking roof, overcrowded, you can sit by the driver on the gearbox, all grand. Hey bus breaks down, send 60 children to walk down a national road where one bad driver can kill them all like skittles. Acceptable

Go for a haircut and stink the place up and poison your hairdresser and other customers with your Major cigarettes. Acceptable.

Stick 5 kids in the back of a Ford Fiesta with one on the shelf of the back window and some kneeling in the boot? Grand, acceptable and by the way what is a seatbelt?

Our school principal bring us to a room to watch on a Black & White TV the Irish football team playing Malta to qualify for a tournament. I had no clue or interest what was going on and tbh I still do not. Jack Charlton and Euro 88 I suppose. I had no idea what was going on

Buy new car in October / November? Your licence plate can be "for reg" and you can register in January. Try this today and you'll be stopped instantly!!

Albert Reynolds a newly appointed Minster said he could get phone lines installed in 3 months. He was ridiculed and laughed at but dammit he achieved it!

These days 3 months would be seen as a ridiculous failure but it was a big achievement at the time. Minister of Posts & Telegraphs, probably our best ever Minister at that role. I believe there is still infrastructure around with P&T stamps. Some post-boxes I believe