The 70's and 80's in Ireland

freddie1970 wrote: »

i remember the food being brutal ...i know hate the smell of bacon and cabbage

Nothing wrong with the food as it was a lot closer to organic than the sh1te that’s around today. But having bacon and cabbage 6 days a week and chicken on Sunday wasn’t much fun.

topper75 wrote: »

An Irish CB ran the rate for the punt. It was a currency/rate for OUR economy, not for a depressed German banking sector or a roaring Parisian property market. It was ours. By us, for us.

Yet the economy was always sh1t... funny that. Inflation was 15%, interest rates if you could even get a mortgage (needed to be saving regularly for years, that's why people stayed engaged for years) were 20%, sounds good if you were lucky enough to have savings but a devaluation could slash their value overnight and whack up the price of fuel and all imported goods. Between that and the high inflation the value of wages fell rapidly so there were constant strikes. Great days, who needs a solid currency like the euro :rolleyes:

hot buttered scones wrote: »

We had a lock on our phone - 3 teenagers in the house and me dad going through every call on the phone bill saw to that. Electrical appliances being bought from the ESB shop and paid in installments on the bill. Most people I knew rented their TVs.

There were no itemised bills in the 70s or 80s. They came along well enough into the 90s IIRC and for the first few years you had to pay extra! So you just got a bill saying X number of units, it didn't even break down between local calls, trunk calls or international. People would be terrified of getting a big phone bill. On our road there were 300 houses and I'd say less than ten of them had a phone. There always used to be people calling in to use our phone and we had a coinbox beside it they'd put 20p into. The public phones would either be vandalised or have a queue. Many of our neighbours (N.B. this was in Dublin city) were on a waiting list for a phone for ten years by the time they put in more lines in the late 80s and they could finally get a phone. Every few months my aunt used to come over to our house to ring her sister in England, she used to get the call put through through the operator (could have dialled direct) so the operator could tell her at the end how much it cost and she'd give my mother the money. A 30-40 minute call used to cost a few pounds.

After my dad died in 1985 my mother was able to get her job back (had to resign when she got married) and there was no tax allowance for widows or widowers in those days so she was taxed as a single person. 65% income tax on a modest enough income, with levies and PRSI on top of that and two teenagers to feed and put through school. Luckily we'd bought the house a few years earlier off the corporation, my mother inherited a bit of money and paid off the balance of the mortgage, it was £500 or something. I remember my mother going around to the rent office (it was a house a couple of streets away) every week paying the corporation mortgage, it was something like £4, if you were just renting it was £2.

I remember the old Lady Lavery pound notes (we used to call her Lady Lavatory ) but you felt rich if you had 50p. Even a 10p (the old big ones, same as the old two shilling coin) felt like a proper bit of money, they had a hefty enough weight to them. The line in Rat Trap "He reaches in his pocket, he finds 50p" had real meaning because finding a 50p was a big enough deal, bag of chips and a bus fare home and a bit left.





Highlight of the week in the 80s was Sunday afternoons watching MT USA on the black and white portable (weren't allowed watch it on the "big" 20" rented colour TV)

Unemployment hit 20 percent in the 80s. The dole was so small it was hardly worth collecting it. You definitely wouldn't be seen in a pub if you were on the dole. You just couldn't afford it. You actually had to queue up weekly to collect the dole. Not unlike the dole scene in the commitments. Apprenticeship wages were tiny. You definitely wouldn't be buying a car with spoiler & alloys.

The 80s were bad times but for the most part we were happy enough because we'd never seen boom times. The crash in the 0s was worse in that we had boom times & when it was taken away we missed it.

Oh yeah we had naff hairstyle

archer22 wrote: »

Those on the dole used to get a voucher for a free pound of butter each week as there was an EU "butter mountain".

They all got excited when they heard that there was also an EU "wine lake" and were expecting another voucher every week.

Sadly that never materialised :pac:

used to bring that voucher into a local shop and get 10 john player blue for it

Chomp & Wham Bars

I wouldn't buy a lot of the nostalgia about those times. In many ways, Ireland is a far better place. One thing worth missing though is how relatively easier it was for young people to afford to be independent back then.

TheRiverman wrote: »

Being hot and and horny on Saturday nights in 1975/76 in my father's Morris Minor that he was brave and trustworthy enough to give me.

Was this you and yer mates?

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

Where on earth did you grow up??

I'm from the countryside and at worst, people had an outdoor toilet. I can only think of one house where they had no toilet and it was owned by a fella who was a bit useless anyway.

Plenty of places, usually owned by old bachelor farmers had no toilets. Go to the usual ditch and bring newspaper...

The wooden spoon!!

I know a lot of people find this hard to believe but it was easier to buy a house in the 1980s as long as you had a steady job people with perfectly ordinary jobs purchased houses factory workers, barmen, retail workers.

NasserShammaz wrote: »

keyholders in the area please come to your premises

I remember I had an old video recording of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from the late 80s and this message warning keyholders to attend their premises was played over the film.

I was a kid at the time and I had a vague understanding that it had something to do with Northern Ireland as the BBC1 lady interrupting a scary part of the film - when the child catcher was introduced - had a strong northern accent and sounded very serious.

McCrack wrote: »

The wooden spoon!!

Corporal punishment. Getting flaked by the teacher at school and coming home and getting it at home as well, happily people realise it's no longer acceptable to beat small children.