Rose-tinted views of the past in Ireland

17-12-2018 6:43pm

mariaalice wrote: »

There was different crime, also a lot of people were locked up unofficially, In the mid-twentieth century, Grangegorman Mental Hospital had patient population of approximately 2,000 people, staff also live in. Even in 1965 it had 1,628 patients.

There was an asylum/mental hospital in Galway with even more inmates/patients and when it was to be closed down there was protests locally about loosing the jobs because it was a big employer. imagine protesting to keep a mental hospital open because it was a big employer.

There is a weird omerta or amnesia about these homes because very often the family were complicit in locking people up. Remember a lecturer saying that when families were concerned about how land would be inherited, if they couldn't marry-off a sibling, or if the sibling wasn't capable of working/emigrating, it wasn't unusual for families to dump them in these institutions. The populations of these places were massive in the 1950's and 60's.

Always think it's telling how much vocations to religious life declined when contraceptives became available and family sizes got smaller. Beyond depressing to think how many young people must have been forced into the priesthood/convent so they wouldn't be counted as part of any inheritance.

Ireland was a profoundly sick society at the time, and that wasn't just being imposed on it by Church and State.

wakka12 · 17-12-2018 7:14pm

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Right.

There’s an underestimation of how poor it was in places. But also not everybody was poor. The south side existed. The we were all poor doesn’t seem right either.

But even the middle class were so much poorer than equivalent today, my mum and dad's families were perfectly comfortable but said things like going on family holidays were very rare for instance

James Brown · 17-12-2018 7:19pm

JupiterKid wrote: »

I’m member of a couple of FB groups that put up old photos of Dublin and other places in Ireland and they are interesting to see.

One thing I note from many of the comments from some of the members posting up is stuff like “how times were so much better back then”, “no crime”, “respect for authority” and how Dublin and Ireland have gone “to hell” in the past 20 years.

Why the selective nostalgia of a much poorer country where there was real hardship, the religious reigned supreme and abused countless vulnerable women and children?

Some posters on these sites even come out with casual racism and homophobia. Would these posters (mostly older people I note) prefer a return to those times?

Thoughts?

I went to a Christian Brothers. Some of them beat the crap out of us and there's a facebook group for the area with photos and thick with nostalgia like it was all the good ol' days. I stick my oar in now and again

James Brown · 17-12-2018 7:21pm

wakka12 wrote: »

But even the middle class were so much poorer than equivalent today, my mum and dad's families were perfectly comfortable but said things like going on family holidays were very rare for instance

The 'middle class' is a con. It's designed to make the public feel like they've progressed.
Middle class use to mean a professional or management type, now it's anyone with any kind of a job. The rest are spongers.

Stoner · 17-12-2018 7:27pm

freshpopcorn wrote:

Some people are never happy!

I grew up in the 80 and 90's

Everyone ate peanuts and marathon bars.

Nobody I knew had a nut allergy.

That's the truth.

The rest, I don't know.

(We all ate glutton filled bread too)

Stoner · 17-12-2018 7:29pm

Irish Guitarist wrote:

I often see people younger than me reminiscing about things that are completely false. For instance lads in their twenties or thirties harking back to the good old days when they played outside instead of playing video games. If you're under the age of forty home computers and video game consoles have existed all your life.

We'd less cars though. More room for football

Bobtheman · 17-12-2018 7:33pm

Nanny state liberalism is the belief that liberal values such as abortion must be accepted by all or you are an idiot. That we must regulate the ****e out of everything even though we don't enforce even existing law. Penality points are a perfect example.
That we can't be critical of anybody's choice to have children even if it exploits a surrogate in the third world or the child will be dependent on welfare handouts
We can't raise immigration as an issue for fear the PC police will call us racist.
I could go on and on.
Good night

Bobtheman · 17-12-2018 7:34pm

Bobtheman wrote: »

Nanny state liberalism is the belief that liberal values such as abortion must be accepted by all or you are an idiot. That we must regulate the ****e out of everything even though we don't enforce even existing law. Penality points are a perfect example.
That we can't be critical of anybody's choice to have children even if it exploits a surrogate in the third world or the child will be dependent on welfare handouts
We can't raise immigration as an issue for fear the PC police will call us racist.
I could go on and on.
Good night
I'm replying to a previous poster

antietam1 · 17-12-2018 8:35pm

Cheap holidays came about in the mid 60's( Freddie Laker and all that)
Went to Lorette de mar with my folks then it seemed as if every second person was Irish.

FelaniaMump · 17-12-2018 8:45pm

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

They will point out the further merging of peoples and cultures but will forget people drownling in their thousands as they flee war-torn countries to countries that don't want them or can't handle them. They will forget the photo of a drowned baby laying face down on a popular pleasure beach.

They will point out how we were never so well off but will forget that we had to work harder and longer than ever before and use transport infrastructure that was not up to the task. Will forget people's 4 hour daily commute.

I was with you up to this point. I've heard people say this before and it is such nonsense! Working longer and harder than ever before? PLEASE!! In days gone by we would have worked on farms seven days a week, worked in service from dawn til late with one day off a month, worked in factories for 14 hour days alongside our children. Later we would have worked a 6 day week as standard, with no working time act, no holiday entitlement, no maternity leave,no parental leave...
Working longer and harder than ever before? What a joke!!

FelaniaMump · 17-12-2018 8:47pm

wakka12 wrote: »

But even the middle class were so much poorer than equivalent today, my mum and dad's families were perfectly comfortable but said things like going on family holidays were very rare for instance

More nonsense. Sure, my relatives middle class family rarely had holidays, but they bought a 4 bed semi in the Dublin suburbs on one wage for three times an annual salary! Middle class kids now have holidays but live in insecure rental homes...its swings and roundabouts.

Ubbquittious · 17-12-2018 9:58pm

There are plenty of people who managed to carve out a nice life for themselves back in the day and the vast majority never ended up in a Magdalene home or being abused by a priest. For a good lot of people I'd even say they had a nicer life than would be allowed now.

I think the OP like many people is looking at the past with sh1t-tinted glasses with no effort being made to find out what daily life was like back then.

freshpopcorn · 17-12-2018 10:03pm

I actually know a gay guy and he preffered being gay in the past because there was no questions/pressure on him to get married/etc.

goose2005 · 17-12-2018 10:39pm

FelaniaMump wrote: »

More nonsense. Sure, my relatives middle class family rarely had holidays, but they bought a 4 bed semi in the Dublin suburbs on one wage for three times an annual salary! Middle class kids now have holidays but live in insecure rental homes...its swings and roundabouts.

yeah, it's a bit like being told, "Sure, you won't be able to buy a house or have a steady job, but ...there's a lot more on telly these days!"

lawred2 · 17-12-2018 10:44pm

Bobtheman wrote: »

Nanny state liberalism is the belief that liberal values such as abortion must be accepted by all or you are an idiot. That we must regulate the ****e out of everything even though we don't enforce even existing law. Penality points are a perfect example.
That we can't be critical of anybody's choice to have children even if it exploits a surrogate in the third world or the child will be dependent on welfare handouts
We can't raise immigration as an issue for fear the PC police will call us racist.
I could go on and on.
Good night

ah yeah - the good auld times - when people minded their own business by being critical and judgmental of other people's business

realitykeeper · 17-12-2018 11:03pm

JupiterKid wrote: »

Would these posters (mostly older people I note) prefer a return to those times?

Thoughts?

Older people lived in those times and they still live now so I would say they are in a position to make an informed decision on which was best. Times past or the present. The older people say (quite rightly in my opinion) that the olden days were better. OP may not like this finding but the OP`s likes are of no consequence.

I say bring back the 1950s complete with strap wielding nuns and brothers brandishing implements in the art of discipline. Bring back the Good Friday`s and the devotions. Bring back the ban on divorce, contraception and the more recent abominations. Ban books and movies that fail in moral standing and may total chastity be observed in all circumstances outside wedlock. Am I not correct?

Mind you. I think the Torah could and should be adopted in our renewed Catholicism, even though it was not part of it in the past.

skooterblue2 · 18-12-2018 12:41am

murpho999 wrote: »

If there was no crime back then, then why was there a police force?

Look at the statistics back then:
5-8 murders a year
the odd break in by the usual suspects
Drugs were only something in the Flats in Dublin.
I never saw drugs growing up.
Once I returned to Waterford city 5 years ago, I was starting to see srynges in the park. I see heroin not shooting up but seeing their souless eyes around the city.

Odhinn · 18-12-2018 12:44am

realitykeeper wrote: »

Older people lived in those times and they still live now so I would say they are in a position to make an informed decision on which was best. Times past or the present. The older people say (quite rightly in my opinion) that the olden days were better. OP may not like this finding but the OP`s likes are of no consequence.

I say bring back the 1950s complete with strap wielding nuns and brothers brandishing implements in the art of discipline. Bring back the Good Friday`s and the devotions. Bring back the ban on divorce, contraception and the more recent abominations. Ban books and movies that fail in moral standing and may total chastity be observed in all circumstances outside wedlock. Am I not correct?

Mind you. I think the Torah could and should be adopted in our renewed Catholicism, even though it was not part of it in the past.

Ban everything and beat the head offof everything else!!!!!!

Franz Von Peppercorn · 18-12-2018 12:51am

skooterblue2 wrote: »

Look at the statistics back then:
5-8 murders a year
the odd break in by the usual suspects
Drugs were only something in the Flats in Dublin.
I never saw drugs growing up.
Once I returned to Waterford city 5 years ago, I was starting to see srynges in the park. I see heroin not shooting up but seeing their souless eyes around the city.

I think that drug problems have spread more than they used to but there was lots of it in Dublin back in the day.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 18-12-2018 12:53am

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

10 to a room.

What's not to like?

Ten to a room is far more common these days than twenty years ago. The 90s weren’t the 1910s.

Witcher · 18-12-2018 12:59am

My family told me one of their neighbours in the late 50/60's had one of their sons sleep in a press because they were that tight for space in a two bedroom house:pac: Just pushed the kids bed into it :pac: They recall it like it was great times

Franz Von Peppercorn · 18-12-2018 1:06am

Witcher wrote: »

My family told me one of their neighbours in the late 50/60's had one of their sons sleep in a press because they were that tight for space in a two bedroom house:pac: Just pushed the kids bed into it :pac: They recall it like it was great times

The op said 20 years ago. 1998.

In any case if you what to see ten to a room I’m sure there’s plenty of Dublin rentals like that.

Witcher · 18-12-2018 1:10am

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

The op said 20 years ago. 1998.

In any case if you what to see ten to a room I’m sure there’s plenty of Dublin rentals like that.

Sorry I didn't know you were policing the thread, get a life ya clown:pac:

Ruraldweller56 · 18-12-2018 1:16am

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I often see people younger than me reminiscing about things that are completely false. For instance lads in their twenties or thirties harking back to the good old days when they played outside instead of playing video games. If you're under the age of forty home computers and video game consoles have existed all your life.

Very interesting perspective. An awful lot of folk I know under the age of 40 (30 in many cases) have spent their entire lives being oppressed by the Catholic Church. Despite barely ever setting foot inside a church.

Go figure.

18-12-2018 1:24am

Ruraldweller56 wrote: »

Very interesting perspective. An awful lot of folk I know under the age of 40 (30 in many cases) have spent their entire lives being oppressed by the Catholic Church. Despite barely ever setting foot inside a church.

Go figure.

It's an interesting thing. In 1780 Brian Merriman wrote the Midnight Court, describing (amongst other things) how sexually actively Ireland was. In the 1850's, most prostitutes in New York were Irish, and in the 1910's one of the largest red light districts in Europe was in Dublin. Irish people seemingly got very oppressed for a very brief period but luckily we've bounced back pretty well...

Baron Kurtz · 18-12-2018 1:37am

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

Yeah. Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. I mean, I hear people lamenting the 70's Ireland for God's sake. They forget the crippling poverty and unemployment. Unemployment rates that would be FAR higher if it were not for the staggering amounts of emigration.

People would emigrate to the UK and the US and basically would never be seen again because transport costs were SO high and, in many cases, they were there illegally.

Standard of living in general was very poor: Food was basic and hadn't changed much since the 40s. The economic climate showed no signs of improving and the whole world was deep in the middle of a cold war.

And as for the vaunted "respect for authority". There is a difference between respecting authority and kowtowing to the church and an overtly corrupt and self-serving government. People say "Oh, look at all the perverts and sex-crimes you have today. Didn't have that in my day". You did. But it wasn't reported because, however bad women have it today, it was so so SO much worse back then. But they had no voice because of said "authorities".

Perverts back then were the gay community: THEY were the ones who were assaulting young boys everywhere. Not the "authorities"

I'm sure, 40 years from now people will look upon the utopia that was 201X. Forgetting the rapid rise in racist, isolationist nationalism especially in the US and eastern Europe. The rampant homophobia in eastern Europe. The constant fear of terrorism and the hate-mongering that is both a symptom and cause of it. They will forget the boom and bust of the world economy. Will forget the people who bought houses only for them to be worthless a year later. They will forget that right now our economy is in the same place as it was at the height of the Celtic Tiger yet we have housing shortages and homelessness and always will have them.

They will point out the further merging of peoples and cultures but will forget people drownling in their thousands as they flee war-torn countries to countries that don't want them or can't handle them. They will forget the photo of a drowned baby laying face down on a popular pleasure beach.

They will laugh at the quaintness of emerging Social Media platforms but will ignore how they became a cesspool of hate and profiteering and agenda-driven misinformation.

They will point out how we were never so well off but will forget that we had to work harder and longer than ever before and use transport infrastructure that was not up to the task. Will forget people's 4 hour daily commute.

But, nostalgia is not new and will be here forever. Each generation looks back at the past with rose-tinted glasses and at the next generation as a bunch of lazy, entitled snowflakes (God I hate that term). It's just that now we are in an age where the average persons reminiscing can reach an extremely wide audience instantly and easily.

I read this with the same verve and incisiveness in its delivery as a monologue from a bristling Mark Renton.

Qrt · 18-12-2018 1:42am

A lot of the reason there's a perception of kids not playing outside is because they're not allowed to. Their mammy read something on "da facebook" about a man in a van going around Dublin (Ohio) and now locks their kid in the sitting room when she puts the washing on the line.

Don't even get me started on parents buying their eight year olds smartphones, then being shocked when some nutter gets in contact. I'm only hitting 20, I feel like I was the last age group to get a smartphone at a responsible age, my first phone was an LG flip to text me ma when she was in work. It's actually shocking the amount of parents giving their kids iPhones without restriction, or the amount of toddlers reared on iPads.

Flesh Gorden · 18-12-2018 2:09am

EdgeCase wrote: »

I remember as a kid Dublin was completely smog bound. Everyone in the suburbs and city burnt coal and probably lots of badly adjusted oil boilers in use too. Your clothes would come in off the line with large 'smuts' (bits of unburnt soot and coal) on them.

As a kid I had constant really bad nose and throat problems that I now attribute to air pollution.

....

There were also dogs roaming absolutely everywhere and dog muck all over the place.

I hate to say it but it was a total dump at one stage.

Dublin is tame compared to the 80s and 90s. It really wasn't one of its brightest eras.

I've very similar memories growing up in the northside of Cork City in the late 80s and into the 90s.

I'd bad asthma until I was 13, the smog was constant and tended to drift up to where we lived.
Reading the above, I can remember the smell of it and those smut things that would be on the washing.

Damp was another problem you just got used to.
Leaky single pane windows, no heating other than a coal fire and a school with black mould everywhere from the leaking roof.

Similar issue with loose dogs. The Dog Pound next to the bus station in Cork City centre was always overflowing and I think they'd a second one out near Togher.

White dogshít on the footpaths, regular dogshít everywhere else.
Same with chewing gum, a kaleidoscope all over the foothpaths.

The smell of the old green CIE buses and the double deckers feeling like they were going to topple over at any stage, as they wobbled around corners.

Having to be weary of flashers and other perverts who'd brazenly come up talking to us as kids in town.

Queuing for everything, everywhere for absolute ages along with everyone else.

Very few cars in our estate, only a handful. Usually in such poor rusty condition, no one would be bothered to try and steal them.

Hearing someone had been in a car crash of any kind, meant they were either dead or were left with life changing injuries.

Knowing that if someone went missing, that was pretty much it.
You'd never know what happened to them or hear from them again.

DEFTLEFTHAND · 18-12-2018 6:14pm

Deleted User wrote: »

It's an interesting thing. In 1780 Brian Merriman wrote the Midnight Court, describing (amongst other things) how sexually actively Ireland was. In the 1850's, most prostitutes in New York were Irish, and in the 1910's one of the largest red light districts in Europe was in Dublin. Irish people seemingly got very oppressed for a very brief period but luckily we've bounced back pretty well...

You say that like it was a good thing.

ohnonotgmail · 18-12-2018 6:19pm

realitykeeper wrote: »

Older people lived in those times and they still live now so I would say they are in a position to make an informed decision on which was best. Times past or the present. The older people say (quite rightly in my opinion) that the olden days were better. OP may not like this finding but the OP`s likes are of no consequence.

I say bring back the 1950s complete with strap wielding nuns and brothers brandishing implements in the art of discipline. Bring back the Good Friday`s and the devotions. Bring back the ban on divorce, contraception and the more recent abominations. Ban books and movies that fail in moral standing and may total chastity be observed in all circumstances outside wedlock. Am I not correct?

Mind you. I think the Torah could and should be adopted in our renewed Catholicism, even though it was not part of it in the past.

You really should keep those kinds of fantasies private. I'm sure there are many documentaries on the net that contain what you want.

Am I not correct?

If you are ever correct it is only by blind luck.

Rose-tinted views of the past in Ireland

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