I spent the summer of 1968 with my Irish Grannie and Aunt just outside Omagh.
We walked the 6 miles round-trip to mass where the men sat on one side and the women on the other, except me as a foreigner from Britland who sat with my Gran and Auntie.
We walked the 8 miles round-trip to Cookstown to watch South Pacific.
We had fresh eggs from the chickens and water came from a stream, no electricity and bread baked in an old stove.
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. I was a child in the 1960s on the northside of Dublin. Money was always short. For instance my mother sold her beloved bicycle in 1962 to get some cash. Aged ten in the mid 1960s I remember the local women gathered around the cashier in Campbell’s shop at the top of Ballymun Ave. bewailing the fact that minister for finance Jack Lynch had removed the subsidy on flour and as a result the sliced bread went up by a halfpenny. Yet even if money was scarce couples could still save to buy a house.
Only three families on our long road could afford a car or a telephone yet we children always managed to buy a copy of our favourite weekly comics such as the Victor, Hotspur, Dandy, Beano, Bunty etc.
The Finglas mobile library would arrive every week with its treasures - ‘Malta Convoy’, ‘The Wooden Horse’, ‘Swallows and Amazons’, ‘Kidnapped’, ‘Treasure Island’ etc.
We grew up aware that a magical land called England existed where delights like Opel fruits were available as well as well-paid jobs. When I was eight the three lads in their 20s next door left for England and came back three years later with a second-hand Thames Trader tipper, a old cement mixer on steel wheels, a dumper and various other bits that allowed them set themselves up as builders.
Another neighbour’s son went off and joined the Met police as only Culchies got jobs in the Gardai.
RTE then was a wonder that served up programmes like ‘The Avengers’ (with Diana Rigg as Mrs Peel), ‘The Fugitive’, ‘F-Troop’, ‘Green Acres’ etc.
Yet according to the Irish Times etc those sunny days I recall in the 1960s were actually on a par with Stalin’s Gulag.
Thank you Karl for this. It has inspired me to write another blog that has been in my head. The fact you had to wait for your comics is interesting, and made it exciting. In fainress my daugther has to wait for her Beano - delivered to her fathers barristers chambers in London (the sub to Ireland is crazy) and then brought home. So soemtimes she has to wait 4 weeks. As I said here - on demad makes people demanding. https://gript.ie/laura-perrins-march-of-convenience/
The RTE/Irish Times version of OUR BLEAK HORRIFIC CATHOLIC PAST is bizarre. All I remember as a kid is happy times. They make it sound as if you couldn't walk to school without tripping over a homosexual's beheaded corpse while cruel priests and nuns chased you down the street with nailed hurleys
I went to Catholic schools and mass weekly. Never heard a sermon against the gays, divorce, the old sex b4 marriage or against abortion. Ever. Which is why it liberalised to fast..
The decline of Western civilisation can be traced to Opal Fruits rebounding as 'Starburst'. I knew instinctively at the time this was a harbinger of doom, an imminent Globalist second dark age
I too was at the REM concert in Slane, but at 18, I was a bit older than Laura. It was wonderful! That summer was also the year Feile was at Páirc ui Chaoimh in Cork- I took a bus and a train to cork, shared a tent with three others, no showers, no luxury, very little money, but over three days we saw the stone roses, Kylie, Tricky, Blur, Massive Attack and loads of other 90’s bands.
I was a teenager in the 1990s. I became an Oasis fan. I've been listening to the '(What's the Story) Morning Glory?' album ever since. A few of my friends at the time went to Oasis's massive event at Knebworth in 1996. Many of the people who attended it thought that it was a bad idea to have an event that big.
We never had it in our day. No things were much better then when we thought buying a t-shirt from a scruffy Irish failed pop-musician (Bob Geldorf) would mean no one in the world would ever be hungry again. The the Berlin wall came down and everything went to pot. Literally.
I spent the summer of 1968 with my Irish Grannie and Aunt just outside Omagh.
We walked the 6 miles round-trip to mass where the men sat on one side and the women on the other, except me as a foreigner from Britland who sat with my Gran and Auntie.
We walked the 8 miles round-trip to Cookstown to watch South Pacific.
We had fresh eggs from the chickens and water came from a stream, no electricity and bread baked in an old stove.
It was the best holiday I've ever had.
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. I was a child in the 1960s on the northside of Dublin. Money was always short. For instance my mother sold her beloved bicycle in 1962 to get some cash. Aged ten in the mid 1960s I remember the local women gathered around the cashier in Campbell’s shop at the top of Ballymun Ave. bewailing the fact that minister for finance Jack Lynch had removed the subsidy on flour and as a result the sliced bread went up by a halfpenny. Yet even if money was scarce couples could still save to buy a house.
Only three families on our long road could afford a car or a telephone yet we children always managed to buy a copy of our favourite weekly comics such as the Victor, Hotspur, Dandy, Beano, Bunty etc.
The Finglas mobile library would arrive every week with its treasures - ‘Malta Convoy’, ‘The Wooden Horse’, ‘Swallows and Amazons’, ‘Kidnapped’, ‘Treasure Island’ etc.
We grew up aware that a magical land called England existed where delights like Opel fruits were available as well as well-paid jobs. When I was eight the three lads in their 20s next door left for England and came back three years later with a second-hand Thames Trader tipper, a old cement mixer on steel wheels, a dumper and various other bits that allowed them set themselves up as builders.
Another neighbour’s son went off and joined the Met police as only Culchies got jobs in the Gardai.
RTE then was a wonder that served up programmes like ‘The Avengers’ (with Diana Rigg as Mrs Peel), ‘The Fugitive’, ‘F-Troop’, ‘Green Acres’ etc.
Yet according to the Irish Times etc those sunny days I recall in the 1960s were actually on a par with Stalin’s Gulag.
Thank you Karl for this. It has inspired me to write another blog that has been in my head. The fact you had to wait for your comics is interesting, and made it exciting. In fainress my daugther has to wait for her Beano - delivered to her fathers barristers chambers in London (the sub to Ireland is crazy) and then brought home. So soemtimes she has to wait 4 weeks. As I said here - on demad makes people demanding. https://gript.ie/laura-perrins-march-of-convenience/
The RTE/Irish Times version of OUR BLEAK HORRIFIC CATHOLIC PAST is bizarre. All I remember as a kid is happy times. They make it sound as if you couldn't walk to school without tripping over a homosexual's beheaded corpse while cruel priests and nuns chased you down the street with nailed hurleys
I went to Catholic schools and mass weekly. Never heard a sermon against the gays, divorce, the old sex b4 marriage or against abortion. Ever. Which is why it liberalised to fast..
The decline of Western civilisation can be traced to Opal Fruits rebounding as 'Starburst'. I knew instinctively at the time this was a harbinger of doom, an imminent Globalist second dark age
Snickers v marathon...
I too was at the REM concert in Slane, but at 18, I was a bit older than Laura. It was wonderful! That summer was also the year Feile was at Páirc ui Chaoimh in Cork- I took a bus and a train to cork, shared a tent with three others, no showers, no luxury, very little money, but over three days we saw the stone roses, Kylie, Tricky, Blur, Massive Attack and loads of other 90’s bands.
Good times!
Gillian. I salute you. That REM concert was just excellent.
I was a teenager in the 1990s. I became an Oasis fan. I've been listening to the '(What's the Story) Morning Glory?' album ever since. A few of my friends at the time went to Oasis's massive event at Knebworth in 1996. Many of the people who attended it thought that it was a bad idea to have an event that big.
Being Gen X I despise nostalgia.
We never had it in our day. No things were much better then when we thought buying a t-shirt from a scruffy Irish failed pop-musician (Bob Geldorf) would mean no one in the world would ever be hungry again. The the Berlin wall came down and everything went to pot. Literally.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/18/netherlands-ban-blackface-makeup-zwarte-piet-black-pete-christmas-parade
I listened to Part 1 of What happened to Counter Culture last night. Thought it was really good !
Especially the idea that we on the Right are today's counter culture - also those of us who mostly disable the internet on our smartphones !
Well thank you for listening Mary. Sadly I canot no longer get the Sounds App in Ireland. I am outraged!
Oh that explains it - was trying to forward that clip & couldn't. I'm outraged too ! !
I'll start a campaign !
Can't get that BBC Radio 4 Artworks "What happened to counterculture" programme to play back ? Anyone know how it works ?
If only they knew* the counter culture was created by the CIA.
*They know.