What do you remember about the last recession ?

[Louth Exile]

I remember five kids being stuck in the back of a rusty green olvo estate, no typo, it wasn't a volvo, the first V fell off many years earlier 

[charlieTully]

eating free handouts off EEC tinned meat. basically dog food for humans. onlytime i ever remember my oul man on the bru. bad times, there was significantly less emphasis on material goods in them days, mind the first time i ever watched a video we hired the machine for the night.

[thebigfella]

Things being even more sh*t than now, bad roads, no cars, crappy food, lack of tv channels......... could go on all night.

[An Gaeilgoir]

The excitement around home when all you're cousins would be coming home for the Christmas from England and the States.  Then the dessolation and emptiness of the place in jan. when everyone went back. 

[seafoid]

An under 12 match in some distant parish. 2 cars and 20 under 12s in each.

Dressing rooms often nonexistent. Very hard to do buttons if it was cold.

On the beach in the summer, swimming togs only. There were no wetsuits .

Good Friday a real penance with no meat. There was no penne arrabiata.

The Evening Press and Con Houlihan.

A very good young journalist in the Sunday Independent called Colm Toibin.

Magill magazine.

Some great writing in the first incarnation of the Sunday Tribune. I remember an article one week about Auschwitz and one the next week about a young girl long ago buried in Cork whose body didn't decay or something like that.

Moving Statues

Ann Lovett and the Kerry babies

Mobile homes put up alongside farmhouses as people had to save forever to get a deposit to build a house. 


 

[Declan]

Good Friday a real penance with no meat. There was no penne arrabiata.

Brilliant

There were 22 of us who grew up together and in December 1985 there were only 2 left in Ireland (D24 now or county Dublin at the time). That Stephen's night was the last time we were all together  as they had all had come home for Christmas form UK, States ,Aus ,Europe etc. In  the intervening years 7/8 of them have come home with new families etc but the vast majority stayed away - Nothing but the same old story!

[FL/MAYO]

The Dollar and the Irish Pound were of equal value at the time, I remember coming home from the states one summer and the money lasting forever. Back then I never thought that Ireland would become a more expensive place to live in than the U.S. Its madness whats gone on there the last 10 years

[The Biff]

Halls Pictorial Weekly, and later Scrap Saturday - (Political Satire that we believed was just funny, when in fact it was probably more realistic than we could ever imagine).

Politicians standing on a box outside Mass, shouting into a Loud-Hailer.

Big Time Bars - they lasted forever, if you didn't break your teeth first.

Naas traffic before the bypass, and how the local traders fought against it for years (same in Kinnegad)

Bottles of Tea brought out to the field when you were stacking the Hay.

Itchy Football jerseys

Rarely seeing a new car.  Old jalopies were kept going until they fell apart, then put back together again with spare parts from an older jalopy sitting under a hedge.

Eucharistic Processions - the town came to a standstill, the men carrying the Canopy were regarded as the leaders of local society.

The PP taking 10 minutes to read the list of donations for "The Stations" ... £10 Joe Smith, Pat Byrne, Mick Malone, .... £5 John Nolan, Seamus Dunne, .... ... ... 50p Larry O'Brien, Christy Murphy, ...... (luckily it all went over my head, but I presume the lads at the end of the list didn't appreciate it, and they probably could barely afford it too).

--------------------------------------------
Simpler times really.  I dont think we really knew a lot about what was happening in other parts of the world, so did we really know if this was right or wrong.  It probably took the return of many emigrants to help the rest of us to realise that there really was a Better Way.

[Hereiam]

1980's Spendin days in the bog and hatin it
2010 Spendin days in the bog and glad of the peace and quite

[thebigfella]

There was no shite about lifestyle parishes either. Killimordaly was as good as Clarinbridge back in the 80s.
Better actually as they won the county championship one time.
People didn't tend to lose the run of themselves .

Skiing holidays?

[seafoid]

There was no shite about lifestyle parishes either. Killimordaly was as good as Clarinbridge back in the 80s.
Better actually as they won the county championship one time.
People didn't tend to lose the run of themselves .

Skiing holidays?

There is nothing special about skiing for people who live near the mountains.

[seafoid]

Halls Pictorial Weekly, and later Scrap Saturday - (Political Satire that we believed was just funny, when in fact it was probably more realistic than we could ever imagine).

I was watching Noonan on Primetime and he has a snarl that Dermot Morgan used to do very well.   

[Louth Exile]

Moving Statues

They're on the way back you know!

[thebigfella]

There was no shite about lifestyle parishes either. Killimordaly was as good as Clarinbridge back in the 80s.
Better actually as they won the county championship one time.
People didn't tend to lose the run of themselves .

Skiing holidays?

There is nothing special about skiing for people who live near the mountains.

Wouldn't be classed as a holiday then? Also the last time I checked there wasn't a world class skiing resort in the Mourne's that had people from abroad flocking to every winter.

[Puckoon]

There was no shite about lifestyle parishes either. Killimordaly was as good as Clarinbridge back in the 80s.
Better actually as they won the county championship one time.
People didn't tend to lose the run of themselves .

Skiing holidays?

There is nothing special about skiing for people who live near the mountains.

That is not true. It may not hold the same excitement as going away for a full week of skiiing and partying - but we just got 2 fantastic weeks of powder and the local ski bums are like dogs with two dicks.