The 70's and 80's in Ireland

Ursus Horribilis · 16-09-2018 10:47am

whisky_galore wrote: »

Nope. You're welcome to it. Hours of my life I'll never get back.

I never said I wanted those times back either. Sigh.

Dakota Dan · 16-09-2018 10:49am

Big Nasty wrote: »

Still the norm at classic car shows!

And the ploughing.

Edgware · 16-09-2018 10:51am

zapitastas wrote: »

Were an awful lot less tubby feckers about in the 80s

Saying that once someone hit 70 they looked about 100. Most pensioners back then resembled Eamon dunphy.

True. Now they are tanned after the winter in the Canaries. The poor oul pensioners

Edgware · 16-09-2018 10:55am

Purple Mountain wrote: »

Someone will have to explain this for me..

Regular on U.T.V. and B.B.C. Northern Ireland. The freedom fighters would have rang in a few bomb warning to the police

StereoSound · 16-09-2018 10:56am

Coillte_Bhoy wrote: »

Bringing rakes of hang sandwiches and flasks of tea to big matches, and standing around at the boot of the car eating them. None of this running into a garage to pick up a bite to eat.

I remember this well, big 80's thing making your own lunches and bringing tea flasks.. Today people pee themselves if there is no take out coffee place or somewhere to charge their phone.

Edgware · 16-09-2018 10:58am

harry Bailey esq wrote: »

We used to rent our telly from a little shop in finglas off Dessie Ellis. He's now a TD and sinn féin spokesperson on housing. Still lives in the house in finglas where he grew up. I'm no shinner but he's a nice genuine fella.

Oh yeah. Very useful with his hands.

iguana · 16-09-2018 11:07am

StereoSound wrote: »

I remember this well, big 80's thing making your own lunches and bringing tea flasks.. Today people pee themselves if there is no take out coffee place or somewhere to charge their phone.

I have managed a great blend of pre-90s financial fastidiousness with modern day fanciness. Lunch on a day out can be a latte made with my favourite coffee with a delicious slice of quiche eaten on a comfy couch all for supermarket prices. Thanks to my little campervan.:)

Fizzlesque · 16-09-2018 11:12am

I was in primary school in the seventies and our teacher used (a) smoke in the classroom & (b) send two of us pupils to the shop during class time to buy cigarettes for her. We'd buy sweets while we were there and eat them on the way back to class. I still remember that wonderful feeling of freedom and escape you'd get when it was your turn to be one of teacher's cigarette shoppers.

Smoking in the classroom with the kids sitting watching....haha, definitely a different world

Sycamore Tree · 16-09-2018 11:26am

A few random thoughts on the 70s & 80s...

There wasn't much money around and unemployment/emigration was very hard on families and friends. There was no car or house envy because most people seemed to have roughly the same wealth.

Begrudgery and Tall Poppy syndrome was rampant. You dare not lift your head higher.

The church were at the height of their power and they knew it. They acted more like colonists than anything else.

The music was fantastic.

I think people were much more unique. People just seem very robotic and boring these days in comparison. Consumerism seems to dominate people's lives now. There were a lot more "characters" around then. Not so politically correct either.

Whole families would sit around and watch great scheduled TV shows every weekend (Dallas, Hill Street Blues, Glenroe etc etc).

Food was generally boring but you also knew what hunger was and it's a great sauce!

People were naturally fitter. Much fitter and in a more general sense.

People had a better general knowledge. The internet has made it too easy.

The big one for me is Time. We seemed to have much more time and everyone seemed much less rushed than today. Even the children today always seem to be in a rush or stressed about time. I guess there were no crèches, no traffic jams. Most mothers were always at home too. I am not saying that is a good thing but it certainly made family life less stressful/rushed.

Masala · 16-09-2018 11:30am

Sycamore Tree wrote: »

A few random thoughts on the 70s & 80s...

There wasn't much money around and unemployment/emigration was very hard on families and friends. There was no car or house envy because most people seemed to have roughly the same wealth.

Begrudgery and Tall Poppy syndrome was rampant. You dare not lift your head higher.

The church were at the height of their power and they knew it. They acted more like colonists than anything else.

The music was fantastic.

I think people were much more unique. People just seem very robotic and boring these days in comparison. Consumerism seems to dominate people's lives now. There were a lot more "characters" around then. Not so politically correct either.

Whole families would sit around and watch great scheduled TV shows every weekend (Dallas, Hill Street Blues, Glenroe etc etc).

Food was generally boring but you also knew what hunger was and it's a great sauce!

People were naturally fitter. Much fitter and in a more general sense.

People had a better general knowledge. The internet has made it too easy.

The big one for me is Time. We seemed to have much more time and everyone seemed much less rushed than today. Even the children today always seem to be in a rush or stressed about time. I guess there were no crèches, no traffic jams. Most mothers were always at home too. I am not saying that is a good thing but it certainly made family life less stressful/rushed.

Still wouldn't swap my life now for a chance to go back.

dilallio · 16-09-2018 11:34am

Sally O'Brien and the way she might look at you ...

Always having a tape recorder next to the transistor radio hoping to be able to record the latest hit, while at the same time cursing the radio dj who would always ruin it by talking over the song.

An Aer Lingus flight hijacked with Albert Reynolds on board. The hijacker's demand??? He wanted the "Third secret of Fatima" to be released.

All rural telephone calls had to be manually routed through the local post-office/exchange, and the local post-mistress frequently listened in on calls and knew more about what was going on than the KGB.

whisky_galore · 16-09-2018 11:39am

archer22 wrote: »

And the Posties on their bicycles in the rural areas...remember the bell ringing at the gate.
In my area there is miles of massive hills so the poor buggers had a really brutal job.

Still they used to make it 5 days a week in all weathers.
But that was before online shopping...Don't how they would fare if it was today

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/postmans-refusal-to-deliver-406mm-long-packet-on-his-bike-leads-to-three-days-of-state-agency-hearings-868836.html

Postman's refusal to deliver 406mm-long packet on his bike leads to three days of State agency hearings

fatknacker · 16-09-2018 11:58am

As I was an introverted wee nipper, I spent a lot of time looking down at the pavements. They were usually cracked and littered with chewing gum and white turds.
That's what I remembered the most.
And you'd feel like a millionaire with a pound.

3rdDegree · 16-09-2018 12:05pm

Masala wrote: »

Don't remember anyone 'young' having cancer. It didn't seem to exist back then

I recall lots of cases of cancer, mainly middle aged people (old to me at the time). Most of them died. I seem to recall back then that a cancer diagnosis was almost always a death sentence.

kencoo · 16-09-2018 12:23pm

"Dublins Great in 88"

begbysback · 16-09-2018 12:40pm

Stolen cars - where I grew up there was no facilities to keep older lads occupied so they usually stole cars, they even stole back out of the Garda station when they took them.

Strangely enough one of my foremost memories is of being able to leave the key in the hall door permanently.

The men you don't see any more, the insurance man, the video man, the toffee apple man.

Break dancing and roller skating, football matches with jumpers as goalposts.

Trips to frawleys and the denim shop a couple of doors away (can't remember it's name) on Thomas street for the latest fashion!!

Ear phones with a player as big as a book

Mongfinder General · 16-09-2018 1:03pm

2011 wrote: »

Just look at this 1985 RTE new report:

I remember it so vividly.

Government approved airfares. £69 was an absolute fortune back then. And then the scheme for couples separating. The level of state interference in people’s lives was heavy.

fleet_admiral · 16-09-2018 1:29pm

Jimmy. wrote: »

The pull out method was all the rage.

Vatican roulette. Pull out and pray

Dakota Dan · 16-09-2018 1:30pm

3rdDegree wrote: »

I recall lots of cases of cancer, mainly middle aged people (old to me at the time). Most of them died. I seem to recall back then that a cancer diagnosis was almost always a death sentence.

I remember a few people looking down on people that got cancer as if they brought it on themselves and should be ashamed, some mentality that.

Sycamore Tree · 16-09-2018 1:31pm

Masala wrote: »

Still wouldn't swap my life now for a chance to go back.

Yes but the question must be would you rather you lived your childhood in the 70s/80s or 2010+.

I know I would prefer to grow up in the 70s & 80s. The kids today spend way too much time indoors looking at screens and they are mollycoddled in every other aspect of their lives.

branie2 · 16-09-2018 1:31pm

The Ann and Barry school books

road_high · 16-09-2018 1:34pm

Mongfinder General wrote: »

Government approved airfares. £69 was an absolute fortune back then. And then the scheme for couples separating. The level of state interference in people’s lives was heavy.

Bizarre alright- the government intervening in airfares! Talk about not “serving the people”

Billy86 · 16-09-2018 1:35pm

road_high wrote: »

Bizarre alright- the government intervening in airfares! Talk about not “serving the people”

Makes me curious about some of the "modern nanny state" type complaints you hear today in some circles.

Dakota Dan · 16-09-2018 1:37pm

You could go out for a night with £20 get drunk have a ball and still have enough left over for the next night.

mikemac2 · 16-09-2018 1:44pm

Ireland had a massive network of creameries. Hundreds of them! Many were tiny and no full time staff.The farmers bring their milk there and later the creamery will do the rounds and bring it all to the main creamery in town.

These days the milk lorry comes to you, you don’t go to the creamery. Operations are much bigger and a drive for efficiency, rush rush rush

These sites were sold off long ago. There may well be a house in your area known as the old creamery. I know one anyway

branie2 · 16-09-2018 1:48pm

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory on telly every Christmas

jimmytwotimes 2013 · 16-09-2018 1:58pm

Refills of your glass milk bottles at the local shop.

Had illegal BBC, UTV etc

Best shows A-Team, MacGyver, Family Ties, Alf, CHiPs, Matlock, Murder She Wrote. If you ever saw Jessica Fletcher checking into your hotel it was probably best to leave, as sh1t was about to go down.

Used to listen to midweek soccer matches on BBC radio but reception was chronic.

Getting flaked at school even though it had been outlawed.

Car parked in the house garage which is now a front room in a lot of houses.

Fruit and veg didn't stay fresh for as long as it does now but they weren't pumped full of crap then.

Madonna, Wham!, Queen, Michael Jackson on MT USA

Born in '76

branie2 · 16-09-2018 2:00pm

The ads which consisted of a still and a voiceover.

Garda Patrol

oceanman · 16-09-2018 2:00pm

branie2 wrote: »

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory on telly every Christmas

still is...

branie2 · 16-09-2018 2:02pm

The Angelus on tv, when it had religious pictures, mainly Mary and the baby Jesus.

The 70's and 80's in Ireland

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