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The 70's and 80's in Ireland

12357…96

Comments

  • #122
    Canis Lupus
    Registered Users Posts: 9,893 ✭✭✭Canis Lupus


    80s here. Moved from Dublin to rural Kerry. Still remember arriving at the house surrounded by wildness. It was summer, the grass was long and the sun was warm and I quickly forgave my parents for taking me away from my friends. Was a good, honest place to grow up although I remember things like being very scared of the absolute pitch blackness of night after coming from Dublin, waking in the early morning to cows mooing.

    I don't remember specifics of the life really, I vaguely remember in Dublin we'd some sort of weird pay phone in the house and I'm sure we didn't get one installed in Kerry for a long time. Everything I wore was from my older brother which in turn went to my younger brother. TV was a two channel affair. My uncle had a black and white one till the day he passed away. I've more clearer memories of the 90s and how fast things moved from then on.

    I enjoyed my childhood. Was talking to the missus only last night and I feel like it would be hell growing up today with all the consumerism and social media to navigate.


  • #123
    Big Nasty
    Registered Users Posts: 22,080 ✭✭✭✭Big Nasty


    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=461321&d=1536963795


  • #124
    freddie1970
    Registered Users Posts: 519 ✭✭✭freddie1970


    I remember going to the video store and renting out the video recorder and cassettes and lugging it all the way home ..5 pound for recorder and 2 videos for a night


  • #125
    rn
    Registered Users Posts: 1,056 ✭✭✭rn


    I grew up in the country in 70's and early 80's

    Mass every Sunday for everyone. Followed by Sunday lunch at home. Followed by supporting local gaa club match in local club, or sometimes away.

    A lot of bachelor farmers. A lot of pipe smokers.

    People drank and drove.

    A lot of people "died suddenly".

    Going to the bog. Standing on draw bar of the trailer, holding back of tractor.

    Snow. A lot of snow.

    Elections. A lot of elections.

    Teacher, guard or nurse were good jobs and likely owners of the rare new cars and telephone lines.

    Dial telephones. Orange p&t vans.

    No seat belts in back seats of cars. Large families crammed into large saloon cars like opel record.

    Huge pot holes all over the roads.

    Many cars were real rust buckets.

    Driving license amnesty... You got paper to let you drive whatever you like by just filling in a form.

    Many houses had well water. Single glazing and solid fuel heating ie turf.

    Bosco and live at 3. Kenny live and dallas. Garda patrol. Mail bag. Market report. Jo maxi.

    Couple of bags of turf donated to the priest. Couple of bags of turf donated to the national school every year.

    Large families. Lot of cousins. Some of them in America. Going to Shannon to drop off a cousin to go to America because my mother was a stay at home parent with a car.

    Dogs were for herding and black and white border collies or gun dogs retrievers. Every house had either one.

    A lot of killing in the North on the news and local "IRA families". FG families. FF families.

    Shops that sold groceries from behind a counter... You told the shop keeper what you wanted and they selected it.


  • #126
    KevRossi
    Registered Users Posts: 4,378 ✭✭✭KevRossi


    Great music. Most other things were shlt.


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  • #127
    mikemac2
    Registered Users Posts: 2,926 ✭✭✭mikemac2


    Today people complain if Vodafone, eir, Virgin have a disrupted service for even a few hours

    Back then you ordered a phone line from Posts & Telegraphs later Telecom Éireann and you could wait over a year!

    Albert Reynolds was made minister and he said he would bring the waiting time down to a maximum three months. He was laughed out of it and nobody believed him. But yep he achieved it, a rare example of an effective minister


    A VCR cost over 400 punts which was more than a weekly wage for most working men. If someone had a video of a hurling match you went to their house to watch

    You could do microwave classes to learn all the functions. Tbh today I don’t think anyway knows these functions and just use the basic one

    New cars were “run in”, take it handy for a few weeks

    You could buy a new car in October, November, December and put “for reg” on your plate and register in January. Would never be allowed these days

    Sticking 6 kids with no seatbelts and one in the boot and another in the back window of a Fiesta was acceptable

    Harp larger was sold widely, now only the Nordies have it

    There was a Garda station in your parish and often the posting came with a house so they lived there too. They knew everyone and every town land and boreen. The cutbacks had nothing to do with the recession. Even during the Celtic tiger these stations were being closed.


  • #128
    suicide_circus
    Registered Users Posts: 19,802 ✭✭✭✭suicide_circus


    a rented brown wood-effect Ferguson TV


  • #129
    freddie1970
    Registered Users Posts: 519 ✭✭✭freddie1970


    Those big round red ketchup dispensers shaped like a tomato you got in all fast food restaurants


  • #130
    freddie1970
    Registered Users Posts: 519 ✭✭✭freddie1970


    bootleg tapes sold on o'connell bridge


  • #131
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users Posts: 28,346 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    BBFAN wrote: »
    Toilets?? Who on earth told you we didn't have toilets in the 80's????

    We didn't have "toilets". We had toilet - singular-just one, no matter how many lived in the house. "en-suite" wasn't in our vocabulary.

    So we shared - it wasn't unusual to have three largely naked brothers rotating between the shower - sh1te - shave positions in the morning. I can still remember the quaint odour of morning-after dumps, mixed with the first cigarette in the steam from the shower.


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  • #132
    enfield
    Registered Users Posts: 1,109 ✭✭✭enfield


    Spent most of the 70's in the army on the border. No jobs around and got 7 pound a week border money on top of the 15 wages which kept me in booze. Too little to save. Drank a lot, courted a lot. No one had much so all were the same. The girls used to go with fellas who paid for their meals and drinks and when the summer came the girls had enough saved they went abroad on holidays...without the lads. The anti Irish army feeling was quite depressing. We were called Free State Bastards. The only lads with short hair at that time were skinheads and soldiers. The hunger strikes were a big thing then with black tapes wrapped around the telephone poles. We would go to the pubs for a chat with the lads and drink soda and lime when bobs were low. The wimmen were gorgeous (is it obvious I was full or them harmones?). Friday afternoon traffic was mad altogether that could extend your journey home by at least twenty minutes. The GAA was very popular and so were Folk Masses. Junkies were not common and were looked on as a curiosity and probably a bit cool. The hairstyle was 'the London Look' unisex blow dry with the blower pointed just above the middle of your forehead was all the rage. God I remember the orange paisley matching Ben Bherman shirt and tie, you could see me in the dark. The color faded after a few washes and was then used for work, if you had it. George Webb shoes were popular, if you could afford them. Kids used plastic sandals that used to split just under the instep. They were cheap. The pawn office in fairview was popular. We used to pawn our reel to reel tape recorder for a few pound and get it out in a few weeks. No-one had much but all were the same. I used to make pin-art, or stringcraft pictures and sold a few. I made a big one for The Broadstone Inn which was removed after a few years when the tobacco smoke make the string all muddy brown. Made a few bob but not enough to justify the exercise. Buying the cheap mince in the Moore Street butchers, who had added a red dye so it would disguise the fat content. Dunnes stores was the cheapest and rent for a one roomed flat in Broadstone was a fiver a week, sounds cheap but the dole was 8 quid a week, and you had to sign on every week. There were no homeless people in Dublin that I remember and few if any beggars. Free love, for feck sake what was all that about? It must have been in England, we could not afford it here in Ireland. Condoms were impossible to get until mail order came in, and varied in quality, (you don't want to go there).
    The main thing I remember is....no jobs....and no color...I still have the photographs to prove it!


  • #133
    Wishbone Ash
    Registered Users Posts: 24,949 ✭✭✭✭Wishbone Ash


    rn wrote: »
    ......Driving license amnesty... You got paper to let you drive whatever you like by just filling in a form.....
    No - it didn't work like that. That particular myth has been doing the rounds on Boards for years now because it suits those who complain about the current system.


  • #134
    Day Lewin
    Registered Users Posts: 4,604 ✭✭✭Day Lewin


    I remember the 70's very well. Poor, broke.
    But rents were do-able and even house purchase was possible for anyone who had a half-decent job.
    Also, before AIDS, but after the Pill, was a golden age of hippie-dom and making love, not war. And the music reflected that - hopefulness, in spite of fears - so many good songs!
    Important social movements like the Whole Earth Catalog and Womens Lib were steadily gathering momentum.
    People sent letters and cards through the post, all the time: no texting or emails or nothing "instant" like that.

    Reading back over this thread, it appears that there was a very wide gulf of difference between life for the Dublin middle classes, and the way things were in country places.


  • #135
    Mongfinder General
    Registered Users Posts: 1,993 ✭✭✭Mongfinder General


    enfield wrote: »
    Spent most of the 70's in the army on the border. No jobs around and got 7 pound a week border money on top of the 15 wages which kept me in booze. Too little to save. Drank a lot, courted a lot. No one had much so all were the same. The girls used to go with fellas who paid for their meals and drinks and when the summer came the girls had enough saved they went abroad on holidays...without the lads. The anti Irish army feeling was quite depressing. We were called Free State Bastards. The only lads with short hair at that time were skinheads and soldiers. The hunger strikes were a big thing then with black tapes wrapped around the telephone poles. We would go to the pubs for a chat with the lads and drink soda and lime when bobs were low. The wimmen were gorgeous (is it obvious I was full or them harmones?). Friday afternoon traffic was mad altogether that could extend your journey home by at least twenty minutes. The GAA was very popular and so were Folk Masses. Junkies were not common and were looked on as a curiosity and probably a bit cool. The hairstyle was 'the London Look' unisex blow dry with the blower pointed just above the middle of your forehead was all the rage. God I remember the orange paisley matching Ben Bherman shirt and tie, you could see me in the dark. The color faded after a few washes and was then used for work, if you had it. George Webb shoes were popular, if you could afford them. Kids used plastic sandals that used to split just under the instep. They were cheap. The pawn office in fairview was popular. We used to pawn our reel to reel tape recorder for a few pound and get it out in a few weeks. No-one had much but all were the same. I used to make pin-art, or stringcraft pictures and sold a few. I made a big one for The Broadstone Inn which was removed after a few years when the tobacco smoke make the string all muddy brown. Made a few bob but not enough to justify the exercise. Buying the cheap mince in the Moore Street butchers, who had added a red dye so it would disguise the fat content. Dunnes stores was the cheapest and rent for a one roomed flat in Broadstone was a fiver a week, sounds cheap but the dole was 8 quid a week, and you had to sign on every week. There were no homeless people in Dublin that I remember and few if any beggars. Free love, for feck sake what was all that about? It must have been in England, we could not afford it here in Ireland. Condoms were impossible to get until mail order came in, and varied in quality, (you don't want to go there).
    The main thing I remember is....no jobs....and no color...I still have the photographs to prove it!

    Free State Bastards. That takes me back to a time when I was about 7 or 8 years old watching Dublin on Hill 16 in the mid1980’s. The poor Gardai got dogs abuse that day and Dublin lost so it all kicked off. I remember being picked up by my Dad and carried out of the ground quick sharp


  • #136
    the purple tin
    Registered Users Posts: 10,943 ✭✭✭✭the purple tin


    Someone who grew up in the 70's will say they were the good old days. Someone who grew up in the 90's will say they were the best.
    Your youth is what you remember as good, regardless of what era it happened in.
    A person born in the 40's for instance, is less likely to think the 80's were deadly than a person born in the late 70's; it's all subjective like.


  • #137
    Graces7
    Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    I lived in rural Donegal late 70s. The poverty of families ... called at a farm and there were half a dozen kids standing round a table with spoons, taking it in turns to eat from a tin of baked beans.

    Recall too one day the palpable tension in one town near the Border where there had been a bombing incident.


  • #138
    twowheelsonly
    Registered Users Posts: 2,268 ✭✭✭twowheelsonly


    Wishbone Ash wrote: »
    No - it didn't work like that. That particular myth has been doing the rounds on Boards for years now because it suits those who complain about the current system.


    It was 1979 and as far as I remember you had to have held at least two (possibly 3 ??) Provisional licences beforehand. A couple of my teachers availed of this but it caused consternation with the insurance companies as many refused to insure those who hadn't done the test.

    A large part of the backlog was caused by the postal strike which went of for months. Actually the 70s' and early 80s' were a great old time for strikes including the Bank strike, RTE , Guinness, Dunlops and Dublin Bus amongst them. The postal strikes probably had the biggest effect though as it affected everyone. It's mad to think that if they went on strike now it would only have a fraction of the effect.


  • #139
    Big Nasty
    Registered Users Posts: 22,080 ✭✭✭✭Big Nasty


    We were well enough off I guess. Yearly holidays in Spain, used to eat out every Saturday. Blake's in Stillorgan and The Dalkey Island Hotel were favourites. We had two cars, a Granada and a Fiesta which were upgraded every few years. My Dad lost his job around '85 as the company he was working for closed down which was a worry for a while but he picked up something else fairly sharpish. Think there was a considerable drop in salary for a spell though.

    There was no waste or disposal of items like today though. We bought a second hand VCR in the late 80's for £350. My sister was still using it 15 years back. You buy almost any electrical good now it's almost as cheap to replace it than repair it if it fails.

    The pubs were great craic and full day and night. People, including teachers would have a couple of pints and a toasted sarnie on their lunch.


  • #140
    enfield
    Registered Users Posts: 1,109 ✭✭✭enfield


    Anco turned into Tús, then a CE Scheme, then Solas, then Fthe BILD, who knows what it is now?


  • #141
    Mena Mitty
    Registered Users Posts: 5,934 ✭✭✭Mena Mitty


    enfield wrote: »
    Anco turned into Tús, then a CE Scheme, then Solas, then Fthe BILD, who knows what it is now?


    Think it was Fas for a while too. It has a new name now.


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  • #142
    Patrick2010
    Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Patrick2010


    Shamrock Rovers winning 4 in a row


  • #143
    Wibbs
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,071 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Day Lewin wrote: »
    Reading back over this thread, it appears that there was a very wide gulf of difference between life for the Dublin middle classes, and the way things were in country places.
    That was my impression too, even at the time. There was a gulf between middle class Dubs and working class, but the gulf between Dublin/Cork/Galway and "The Country" was much larger. For one thing they were much more isolated from media. A captive audience. RTE was your lot as far as TV went(though radio gave you more)and if people think RTE today has a bias, bejesus it was more obvious then. A few years back I found an RTE Guide from the mid 70's and the references to the Church and input from priests in articles was eye opening. If you lived in Dublin or along the East coast, many people had either a dirty great aerial on their house, or had "the pipe" so you got the British TV channels which opened up your mental and cultural world. This tended to take away more of the Church and official state influence. There were fewer god botherers for a start. In the 80s when the satellite stuff was added to the mix again at the time I noticed a change in the cultural vibe.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • #144
    ArchXStanton
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,912 ✭✭✭ArchXStanton


    I've one vivid memory of being a child in the 80's...standing in a puddle,with a stick in my hand on some waste ground,wearing a pair of Mr.men welly boots...no fancy toys in those days

    Edit: and the horsehair Duffel coat,the ones with the warthog tusks for buttons


  • #145
    The Crowman
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 991 ✭✭✭The Crowman


    Those weird Eastern European cartoons RTE would show as filler between programmes, National Film board Of Canada animated shorts and these.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFgcx76RIg



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m-095okyQY


  • #146
    NasserShammaz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 886 ✭✭✭NasserShammaz


    Playing football on the road and only having to stop every ages to let a car pass & Sizzlers ( Runners) from Pennys indestructible cause what you really wanted was a pair of Rom 2000 adidas


  • #147
    archer22
    Registered Users Posts: 2,116 ✭✭✭archer22


    Catholic church was still huge and held massive sway and almost everybody went to mass.Atheists were as rare as Chickens teeth.(my own family being the only ones I knew of in the entire area).

    Also they used to have something called "stations" in their homes...which apparently was a great honour.

    People used to grumble about the Priest reading out at mass the amount of money that every family donated that week, which was probably designed to shame poor folk into giving more than they could afford....and encourage those with notions to be even more generous :D

    If you were applying for anything a reference from the local Guard and Priest meant you were above reproach :eek:


  • #148
    NasserShammaz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 886 ✭✭✭NasserShammaz


    archer22 wrote: »
    Catholic church was still huge and held massive sway and almost everybody went to mass.Atheists were as rare as Chickens teeth.(my own family being the only ones I knew of in the entire area).

    Also they used to have something called "stations" in their homes...which apparently was a great honour.

    People used to grumble about the Priest reading out at mass the amount of money that every family donated that week, which was probably designed to shame poor folk into giving more than they could afford....and encourage those with notions to be even more generous :D

    If you were applying for anything a reference from the local Guard and Priest meant you were above reproach :eek:

    I got a Priest to sign my first Passport form :rolleyes: ahh the 80's but we had blockbusters


  • #149
    mikemac2
    Registered Users Posts: 2,926 ✭✭✭mikemac2


    You bought your local paper. Does anyone here buy papers anymore, doubt it

    If you wanted accommodation in Galway then queing for the Galway Advertiser and using a phone box was essential. I guess the Dubs had the Evening Herald and the Corkonians have the Cork Examiner. Despite calling themselves the Irish Examiner nowadays it'll always be a Cork paper to me ;) No google maps so you carry a little map book to find the estates

    But every large town had a paper and actually many of these still exist but are struggling mightily. Deaths, marraiges, golf tournament winners, hurling results, Irish Country Women associations meetings and much more.

    Every parish in your local paper had a section. Want to know when GAA training was on? When is the next match? It's in the paper


  • #150
    Franz Von Peppercorn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,070 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn


    A time of great technological change as had been the previous few decades. Not like today.


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  • #151
    branie2
    Registered Users Posts: 10,288 ✭✭✭✭branie2


    The first film that I saw in the cinema in the 80s was a film about Saint Bernadette of Lourdes in 1985. I was in Lourdes at the time, which was also the first time I was ever abroad.


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