Cut backs in the Eighties - the 70s & 80s nostalgia thread.

Reviewing said:
It is ridiculous. Local estates where the majority of people are unemployed (both by choice and through redundancy) are covered in satelitte dishes. Anyone with sky can do without at least €30 per month of their income.
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They don't necessarily have Sky. After 12 months you can cancel the contract and keep the dish, then use a Free To Air receiver.
 
Boiling hot plastic seats and shorts, now that brings back memories.
I remember going (walking, also a thing of the past!) to Cubs meetings in the breezing cold winter nights, shorts, gray socks, elastic garters with green ribbons things, hat (50's public school boy style), woggle and scarf!
 
Due to education cutbacks I had to do a couple of years of double classes in primary school. One teacher would have to teach 2nd class and 3rd class in the same classroom. There must have been 50 of us in the same room!

Also remember a ten penny bag of sweets once a week and later in the eighties, a video rental once a week was a highlight!
 
Spreadsheet, you just reminded me 5th and 6th were taught in the same class in my primary school also.
Thankfully it did not do me too much harm!
 
Same in my school, often 40, 50+ in a class!!

I remember some darker days in the 80's, namely when my dad was out of work. I remember the SVdeP calling to the door, my parents had literally no money at all. Thankfully those days are well behind us.
 
I think that splitting/combining classes were the norm.
In my NS; Jr & Sr Infants, 2nd Class and half of 3rd Class,
Half of 3rd class and 4th Class were combined.
 
I shared a maths book with my sister, we had to exchange it when needed. Sometimes classes clashed so I had no book. Teacher didn't mind, I was far from the only one sharing books.
And my books were covered in wallpaper, the rich people have clear plastic coverings, I was mad jealous.
You wore hand me downs from your siblings

Your holiday was a day out to Leisure Land in Salthill or maybe Lahinch.
I never left Ireland on a holiday or stayed in a hotel until I was 19

You had two TV channels.
A VCR could cost over IR£400, a huge sum of money at the time.
Xtravision threatened to fine you 25p if you didn't rewind the tape for the next person Hard times indeed

We didn't have a house phone and if you ordered one it could take months to get installed. Eircom deserve a lot of criticism but at least that doesn't happen these days

We had one car and the farm jeep. Only rich folks had two cars. And me and my brothers and sisters jammed into a Ford Cortina. The gardaí would pull you off the road and fine you for that nowadays.

We didn't have Starburst or Snickers, no we had Opal Fruits and Marathon. Taytos cost 12p, last bag of crisps I bought were 90c, now that's inflation!

Finally, I saw the founder of Ballygowan on the Late Late Show and laughed my ass off at him. Honestly, Irish people paying for bottles of water????
Boy was I shown to be foolish
 
I grew up in rural Ireland in the 80s. No central heating, and only 2 TV channels until someone started rebeaming the English channels illegally, still remember the first English soccer match I saw on telly, Arsenal V Liverpool.

I used to get Look and Learn every week and either Shoot or Match, on the one day in the week we went into town to do the shopping

In school, one teacher had junior, senior and 1st class, another had 2nd, 3rd and 4th and the headmaster had 5th and 6th. Secondry school was at least 30 in the class, but no one complained as it was what you expected. It was towards the end of corporal punishment and if I complained that I got a slap at school, no one went running off to the teacher to complain, it was assumed I deserved it.

Going to play GAA matches in the back of a county council van with 10 or 12 other kids is another memory.

How did we ever survive to grow up without Health and Safety?

All joking aside, I do worry about the generation that is emigrating now, the Celtic Tiger cubs have had it far easier over the last 10 years and didn't have to work for things like we did
 
Mpsox said:
All joking aside, I do worry about the generation that is emigrating now, the Celtic Tiger cubs have had it far easier over the last 10 years and didn't have to work for things like we did
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I think if we showed this thread to our parents they'd tell us we had it easy.
They left school at 12 or maybe 15 and went working on the farm or labouring or their fathers trade.
Sure secondary school had to be paid for back then so not that many went.

Every generation thinks they had it worst if you know what I mean
 
One good thing about growing up / working in the 80's is that it does away with all the nostalgia, good-old-days reminiscences that most other generations have. The time was grim and there was very little to cheer.

Just a correction on the tax rate - it was 65% top band for a while, plus another 7% PRSI. I was on these rates when I got my first job !!
 
This thread is bringing back so many memories for me too!

The big shop on Thursday- the Farmers Journal, the Kerryman and the daily newspaper, when we'd get home from school on the Thursday there'd be a mad rush for the press to see what goodies had been bought- and genuinely the goodies were fresh fruit like oranges and bananas and a packet of cornflakes. They'd usually be all gone by Friday morning ( actually before we went to bed on Thursday! )

There was sock darning and elbow patches ( fashionable at the moment, handily), hand me downs, holes in our car floor too. No central heating and the high point of one year was when we actually won a Video player in the supermarket draw. Which then sat in the box for a few weeks while my father tried to figure out if this would be a good thing for our 'education' or not. One night when he was at the cows my brothers wired it up and recorded something for him on the one tape we had. It stayed there then.

For the last few years I've been watching the mountain of presents my children get and getting genuinely worried at it- it's all too much and they don't appreciate it, not like we did when we had much less. It's probably time we had a correction, like it or not.
 
Bring back Supercans!

There used to be Club Shandy which contained maybe 0.003% beer.
I thought I was so hard buying and drinking beer

Stuff was rank, no wonder they stopped selling it
Not to be confused with Club Rock Shandy which is still sold
 
 
We had no money and I mean no money. Did not have food every day , did not have toys at Christmas, did not have food for a few days between Christmas and new year until the dole came, no phone, no car (they were only for posh people) often went back to school in September and no books for first 6-8 weeks. I remember my mam losing her temper with a nun who was giving out to us over this and saying, "you asked them why they had no books, did you ask them did they have anything to eat today" Nun was horrified and we were given books straight away.


We were not allowed open the door to anyone in case it was the Rent Man/TV Licence Man or Pools man or someone else owed money. If things were extremely tight you would have to dodge Frawleys too. Were brought to Court for rent arrears several times, ESB cut off a few times. No such thing as a holiday (once in 15 years) and all clothes were bought off Frawleys Clubs.

I had a shock horror incident when I discovered almost 30 years later that my Communion Dress was not bought from the Communion Dress shop in the Village but rather the second hand shop. A lot of our clothes came from jumble sales and I hated this.

Despite our family being like a Barrytown novel, I will not say it was all grim, I could write a book (and might someday) about some of the comedic/tragic incidents.

It will be a cold day in Hell before I have to go back to living like that! I so appreciate everything I have now and if it all changed tomorrow, I would just go back to the drawing board, start again, whatever it takes.
 
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