How did people pre 1998 survive?

Eugene Norman · 12-06-2015 09:14AM

Wompa1 wrote: »

My mother moved from New York city in the 80's to a small rural village in the west of Ireland. The way she describes it, it sounded like one of the most extreme adjustments to make.

Two TV Channels that didn't come on until the late afternoon.
Never having enough hot water
My grandparents made her convert to Catholicism. She had to do a Communion and Confirmation...she would do readings at mass and locals would snigger at how she pronounced certain words with her accent
You could not buy groceries anywhere in the village, you'd have to drive to Galway city which was 35 minutes away and didn't even have a McDonalds back then.
A movie would come out in the US and would take 6 months to come out in Ireland. Ditto certain popular songs
Pubs would be full of children on Sundays

Ireland has progressed a lot in a short space of time. It's a wonder what money can do, huh!?

I don't believe the groceries thing. And movies still take months to cross the pond.

crusier · 12-06-2015 09:15AM

Wompa1 wrote: »

My mother moved from New York city in the 80's to a small rural village in the west of Ireland. The way she describes it, it sounded like one of the most extreme adjustments to make.

Two TV Channels that didn't come on until the late afternoon.
Never having enough hot water
My grandparents made her convert to Catholicism. She had to do a Communion and Confirmation...she would do readings at mass and locals would snigger at how she pronounced certain words with her accent
You could not buy groceries anywhere in the village, you'd have to drive to Galway city which was 35 minutes away and didn't even have a McDonalds back then.
A movie would come out in the US and would take 6 months to come out in Ireland. Ditto certain popular songs
Pubs would be full of children on Sundays

Ireland has progressed a lot in a short space of time. It's a wonder what money can do, huh!?

New York was idilic at the time too, murder capital of the world in the 80's, what were her parents thinking off when they brought her to the West of Ireland !

neris · 12-06-2015 09:16AM

The Dark Side wrote: »

Personally I think it's very unfair the way teenage boys have such easy access to hard-core pornography.

In my day you had to sit through a 2hour French drama on Channel 4 to see 5 seconds of sideboob.

or you could have just watched eurotrash on a friday night

Eugene Norman · 12-06-2015 09:18AM

Asmooh wrote: »

Oh sorry I forgot we had satellite back in 1993-94 or so already

I wonder why he picked 1998. Those mobile phones were primitive. Only post 2007, and really in terms of being universal about 2010, did smart phones take off. That's the real modernity cut off.

2006 and 1996 were about the same. Dublin has had multi channel for decades.

SpaceTime · 12-06-2015 09:18AM

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I don't believe the groceries thing. And movies still take months to cross the pond.

And it's down to an artificial barrier created by the movie industry. It's nothing to do with Ireland.

SpaceTime · 12-06-2015 09:22AM

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I wonder why he picked 1998. Those mobile phones were primitive. Only post 2007, and really in terms of being universal about 2010, did smart phones take off. That's the real modernity cut off.

2006 and 1996 were about the same. Dublin has had multi channel for decades.

Most of Ireland's urban areas have had cable for a very, very long time. A lot of effort went in to avoid having to watch RTE!

Satellite television has been a huge change for rural areas everywhere though, not just in Ireland. It was the same in the USA. Outside of cities you'd very limited TV choices before the advent of satellite and digital terrestrial TV later. A lot of channels over there also only broadcast on UHF in urban areas, you could be stuck with quite limited TV in the rural spots. It was still better than RTE in the 80s tho ... Live at 3 ... Mass.... Ads for cow medicine ... Mass ... GAA ... Angelus ... Prayer at bedtime ... Closedown ...

Asmooh · 12-06-2015 09:24AM

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I wonder why he picked 1998. Those mobile phones were primitive. Only post 2007, and really in terms of being universal about 2010, did smart phones take off. That's the real modernity cut off.

2006 and 1996 were about the same. Dublin has had multi channel for decades.

How about Windows Mobile back in 2000? was also a "smartphone" or PocketPC.

Conall Cernach · 12-06-2015 09:28AM

SpaceTime wrote: »

And it's down to an artificial barrier created by the movie industry. It's nothing to do with Ireland.

Originally it was due to the number of prints of the movie available but I suppose now with the increasing use of digital projectors there is less call for there to be a delay in getting a movie to Ireland as it can just be downloaded.

SpaceTime · 12-06-2015 09:29AM

I can't imagine life as an adult before the 1990s here though!

Incredibly restrictive on areas of life especially anything about sex and sexuality:

Heavily religious, restricted availability of contraception (not available at all in the 1970s), lots of weird attitudes to anything like that, massive stigma about pregnancy, homosexuality was still illegal and so shameful you couldn't even mention it although it was still probably less of a big deal than pregnancy outside marriage which could still get you a spell in a magdalene laundry and dumped out of some families ... No divorce ... I've relatives from that era who has to leave the country as their marriages broke down!
Most have never come back!

I think it's the social issues in Ireland and the extreme religious control that have changed the most.

Technology was pretty much the same all over Western Europe and the U.S.

Ireland still has weird attitudes to abortion to the point that I have a few non Irish friends who opted to move home when they were having babies in case anything went wrong here. There's a lot of concern out there about risks that you might have to carry a dead or unviable pregnancy to term or might be put at serious risk. Ireland is still massively out of line with even the most conservative places in the world on that issue and I'm not even taking "unwanted" pregnancies but just the attitude is so dogmatic it's actually quite frightening if you've any connection to anyone who has given birth!

There aren't very many places on the planet other than Ireland that would potentially force someone to carry a pregnancy from rape or incest to term.

Whatever your views on this, it's still one of the very weird aspects of Ireland

I know two people with heavy weight IT jobs who left Ireland when they hit the baby having phase because of this. Like it or not, it's still a huge barrier for women here even though everything else is actually very liberal these days.

Greenmachine · 12-06-2015 09:34AM

First mobile phone in 99, when I went off to college, 087 GSM ready to go. Not that 088 analogue nonsense. Remember getting text around then from friends when there was network issues, meaning that you weren't charged for calls or texts. Oh the excitment.
Cablelink television, and cycling to next town to go to an inernet cafe to use napster. It was a total false economy vs paying for the music in the shop. Just for refreshing the auld memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgffRW1fKDk

not sure now to embed youtube videos.

Thanks to Omakeral for PM me how to embed the youtube video.

SMJSF · 12-06-2015 09:41AM

Kermit.de.frog wrote:

No broadband No digital television No mobile phones (except rare gigantic bricks) No lots of other things we have now.

People actually went out of their house.

They found out about celebs from paper, yes physical paper magazines.

Kids went out and actually played with dirt, and got bumps and cuts.

People had to go to Ladbrokes and paddy power to make bets.

People wouldn't be so angry if they got stood up standing at clearys clock.

Accounts were done by writing.

the_monkey · 12-06-2015 09:43AM

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

No broadband
No digital television
No mobile phones (except rare gigantic bricks)
No lots of other things we have now.

Even worse - how did people in the 80's survive?:eek: At least they had discmans in the 90's.

And how about the 70's?:eek::eek: Some tvs still did not have colour!

It just, it just does not bare thinking about how bleak life must have been.

Is there any boardsies of this vintage on AH to share their experiences of these desolate times?

Well, they didn't know any better did they ?

Imagine 100 years from now people saying "how the hell did people in 2015 survive - must have been bleak as ****"

SpaceTime · 12-06-2015 09:44AM

Cheap airfares is another HUGE change!

It used to cost you several hundred quid to go even on a short hop to the continent and required a trip to a travel agent and booklets of paper tickets!

And all you got extra compared to today was a like warm cup of tea and maybe a sandwich for £250

Chris_Bradley · 12-06-2015 09:45AM

I always remember my Dad saying to me when I first got my mobile in early '99 - "You're fuc*ed now, you'll never have a pint in peace"

He was right.

WildWater · 12-06-2015 09:52AM

Chris_Bradley wrote: »

I always remember my Dad saying to me when I first got my mobile in early '99 - "You're fuc*ed now, you'll never have a pint in peace"

He was right.

You could always turn it off while having a pint.

SpaceTime · 12-06-2015 10:00AM

Ah you can't :

1. It's too addictive and you'd be concerned you'd miss something on any one of the social media platforms

2. People start texting you wondering if you're ok and thinking you're ignoring them if you're offline for more than an hour !!

I was on a long flight recently and I got several concerned voicemails wondering why I wasn't answering !!!

Ging Ging · 12-06-2015 10:07AM

The Dark Side wrote:

In my day you had to sit through a 2hour French drama on Channel 4 to see 5 seconds of sideboob.

And still has 2 seconds to spare.

TheBeardedLady · 12-06-2015 10:10AM

I used to meet my friends at "the wall" in the evenings and that's where the gang of us would hang out. "The lane" was also another favourite spot as was "the garage" and you knew your friends would be at one of 3 places. I did a lot of calling into people's houses as well with the hope that they'd be there.

Meeting fellas was done through word of mouth - someone would tell someone to tell him or vice versa to meet round the back of the community centre for a canoodle. Sometimes you'd phone their house after a million attempts at dialling their number and hanging up. No contact was made until you met up again.

I recorded music from the radio or nicked my brothers' records and cassettes and got my first Walkman in 1994 from my brother in the US, which I remember thinking was the coolest thing. I listened to the radio a lot.

I got a Sega Megadrive for xmas 1992 and Sonic was my fave.

I've got boxes and boxes of letters I'd saved that I'd written in class to my friends that were all passed around as well as letters we'd written to each other on holidays. We actually sat down and wrote a letter on our holidays, went to the post office, bought a stamp and posted it. That fookin dedication to friendship right there.

I hated playing indoors as a kid and was always outside. My town was more country than it is now and I grew up right beside a massive field with horses and during the Summer, a circus would come and set up there. I was a five minute walk from the sea and I walked to school everyday - my town couldn't have been any better to grow up in as a kid though I thought it was the most boring place on the planet as a teen. During the boom, it exploded in size and now there's estates where there used to be fields ("I remember when this was all fields") but it's still a nice spot where plenty of kids play on the streets.

No idea if I was happier than the average kid now but I was certainly happy. Everything was an adventure back then and there seemed to be more mystery about things than there is now. My imagination was on constant overdrive all the time. No sure if it's the case for kids/teens now.

sbsquarepants · 12-06-2015 10:22AM

OldGoat wrote: »

The most significant advance in technology for me was when we were allowed to use ballpoint pens rather than ink and nib pens. In a recent fit of luddite-ism I bought myself a fountain pen.

Ha ha. Rage against the machine, oldgoat!

campingcarist wrote: »

When something hasn't beeninvented you don't miss it.

Not true - I miss the holodeck soooooooooooo bad

For some reason I spent a lot of my time in the 80's robbing orchards. About 10 of us would set off with a load of plastic dunnes bags to fill up. After a succesfull raid we'd share out the apples with our neighbours in some kind of robin hood-esque gesture. Nobodies parents seemed to give a damn that we'd just spent the afternoon fleecing some poor small business.
Once the apples kept flowing, everyone was sweet.:D

Ash.J.Williams · 12-06-2015 10:24AM

Duke O Smiley wrote: »

Lots and lots of ****

using imagination!!

Qualitymark · 12-06-2015 10:26AM

Go to 1.05/16 on this and you'll get an idea:

topnotch · 12-06-2015 10:31AM

Mister Vain wrote: »

The Sega Mega Drive kept me occupied for most of the 90's. That and the lingerie section in the catalogs.

Check out this website they have all the old megadrive games that you can play for free, including hundreds youve never heard of. Brought back alot of memories.
http://www.letsplaysega.com

the_monkey · 12-06-2015 10:35AM

I used to watch TV5 (French channel) for a flash of tits and have the VCR ready to record ... my God ... teenage boys don't know how easy they have it for whacking material these days ...

mfceiling · 12-06-2015 10:42AM

Great times. No people showing off with what they had, where they were going/had been or what they were eating. People had time to talk and listen. "Social" media nowadays is a one way conversation of pretending to "friends" how great your life is - desperate for "likes".

I was born in 1974. As a kid we were playing outside constantly. We ate together as a family and watched tv programmes together...crystal maze, treasure hunt.

Funnily enough the great strides in living standards have come from people in my generation. Young people nowadays have a serious sense of self entitlement.

Agricola · 12-06-2015 10:44AM

I had an ancient Atari 2600, as did my cousin. His neighbour had a Megadrive which absolutely blew our mind. Then the Playstation came along in 1995, which I couldnt afford until '97. No phones, no social media, no screen addicted kids.

My abiding memories of the summers of the 90's would be all the time we spent outdoors though. Even though none of us were the most adventurous kids and we liked our computer games more than most at the time, we still made use of what fine days came with endless football games, climbing all available structures, going down to the river, exploring the nearby woods, cycling/racing our clapped out high nellies to the shops for Mr Freeze.....
I look at my cousin's kids now and all of that would seem very alien to them with PS4's, tablets, 300 channels on tv etc.

Wouldnt swap places with them for anything.

emeldc · 12-06-2015 10:50AM

In 1975 I worked as a lounge boy in a south Dublin pub. A pint of Guinness was 28p.
In the same year my old man rented our first colour TV, a 22" Ferguson from RTV Rentals (remember them?) at a cost of £2.50 per week or almost 9 pints :eek:

farmchoice · 12-06-2015 10:54AM

i got my first mobile in 1998 a nokia 5110. i was asked by eircom to to a customer group survey.
i went to the mount clare hotel and was paid 20 pounds and i got 2 free pints as well.

we all sat around and discussed our mobile phone use. most of us said that we would never bring our phone out with us on a night out as it would be considered incredibly pretentious and the act of a complete bell end.

a minority disagreed and thought that it was was becoming more acceptable to be seen with a phone in a social setting, but all agreed that taking it out of your pocket, leaving it on the table in front of you or god forbid using it in company would be considered totally unacceptable.

Cee-Jay-Cee · 12-06-2015 10:56AM

I grew up in the 70's and 80's and if I could I would want my children to have the same childhood I had. I would have hated to have been a teenager in the 90's or 00's or now. Children don't know what it's like to wander in fields, to make up their own games and have fun without computers phones or TV.

OP you might wonder how people survived back then but people who lived through those ages wonder the same thing about people your age. How the hell have you actually made it so far, you can't do anything without consulting a phone app, or computer program first, you have no ability to think outside the box. You spend so much time with your face stuck in a phone that you have actually missed most of your life passing you by. I feel sorry for you, you have absolutely no idea what you are missing although you probably have an app now to tell you what you missed.

Kalman · 12-06-2015 10:57AM

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

No broadband
No digital television
No mobile phones (except rare gigantic bricks)
No lots of other things we have now.

Even worse - how did people in the 80's survive?:eek: At least they had discmans in the 90's.

And how about the 70's?:eek::eek: Some tvs still did not have colour!

It just, it just does not bare thinking about how bleak life must have been.

Is there any boardsies of this vintage on AH to share their experiences of

these desolate times?

Desolate times?>> Nay! For me , the 70's / 80's , life was wonderful !!

What you never had, you never missed! Your question will no doubt be asked again in 20/ 30 years.

Ash.J.Williams · 12-06-2015 11:02AM

I feel like an old man saying this....and many old people have said this before me...but life was a lot better!

Some cnt's on facebook see themselves as bloggers now and they have as much depth as a weetabix.

How did people pre 1998 survive?

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