Rose-tinted views of the past in Ireland

JupiterKid

I’m member of a couple of FB groups that put up old photos of Dublin and other places in Ireland and they are interesting to see.

One thing I note from many of the comments from some of the members posting up is stuff like “how times were so much better back then”, “no crime”, “respect for authority” and how Dublin and Ireland have gone “to hell” in the past 20 years.

Why the selective nostalgia of a much poorer country where there was real hardship, the religious reigned supreme and abused countless vulnerable women and children?

Some posters on these sites even come out with casual racism and homophobia. Would these posters (mostly older people I note) prefer a return to those times?

Thoughts?

whisky_galore

If there was only a way to stuff all those fűckers into a time machine and send them back to 1935 and they could stay there. Preferably in a tenement, or an industrial school, Magdalene laundry or other charming facility.

beauf

How are you different.

You like them are focused on the past.

What about all the hardship today?

freshpopcorn

People drive me mad when it comes to this.
Take discipline in schools.
I'd see the same person saying there's no respect anymore and they need to go back to an old style discipline.
The same people make a big deal if they hear about somebody being canned in school/etc in the past.
Same with people who'd have conditions such as dyslexia or ADHD. They'd say they don't believe because they weren't there before and then give out mad that people didn't get the help needed in the past.
Same with the respect for the Gardai, Shops being open late, TV, etc.

Some people are never happy!

Kermit.de.frog

10 to a room.

What's not to like?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

"no crime" and "respect for authority" I usual counter with the words "Christian" and "Brothers".

The simple problem with the 70s and 80s is that ignorance was bliss.

hill16bhoy

Vote Generation Identity for a return to polio, TB and famine.

"Hardship will bond us", or something.

ardinn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHJhu15f-hg

Atoms for Peace

you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young
prices were reasonable
politicians were noble
and children respected their elders

lalababa

They were the best of times, they were the worst of times.
Things have changed alot though. Agricultural and industrial manufacture work have evaporated. It's easy and very comfortable to live on social welfare.
Communication via smart phone. Living by smartphone. Almost everybody goes to college. The old way of socializing (phisically talking )is
Slowly going.
While people on social welfare can live the same as the middle class of the 60's/70's, actually paying for services (plumber/builder/professionals etc.) has skyrocketed, squeezing the middle class. I'm going to breakfast now and will have some marmalade on my toast.....

TheValeyard

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young
prices were reasonable
politicians were noble
and children respected their elders

Respect your elders

razorblunt

Nostalgia! It ain't what it used to be.

murpho999

If there was no crime back then, then why was there a police force?

EdgeCase

As Jasper Carrot once said: there were no burglaries in the area where he grew up because there was nothing to steal in most houses. What were you going to do? Break in and steal a clothes mangle ?!

mariaalice

murpho999 wrote: »

If there was no crime back then, then why was there a police force?

There was different crime, also a lot of people were locked up unofficially, In the mid-twentieth century, Grangegorman Mental Hospital had patient population of approximately 2,000 people, staff also live in. Even in 1965 it had 1,628 patients.

There was an asylum/mental hospital in Galway with even more inmates/patients and when it was to be closed down there was protests locally about loosing the jobs because it was a big employer. imagine protesting to keep a mental hospital open because it was a big employer.

Irish Guitarist

I often see people younger than me reminiscing about things that are completely false. For instance lads in their twenties or thirties harking back to the good old days when they played outside instead of playing video games. If you're under the age of forty home computers and video game consoles have existed all your life.

Feisar

No crime because people had nothing to rob!

Peatys

JupiterKid wrote: »

I’m member of a couple of FB groups....
Thoughts?

Delete Facebook. Problem magically goes away.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

10 to a room.

We'll get there again soon...

KungPao

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I often see people younger than me reminiscing about things that are completely false. For instance lads in their twenties or thirties harking back to the good old days when they played outside instead of playing video games. If you're under the age of forty home computers and video game consoles have existed all your life.

Ah but in my day, you’d have a fifa95 session with the lads, then head out and play actual football afterwards, even when it was getting dark and you could barely see the ball - “next goal the winner”, we’d say. Games back then weren’t as immersive really, not the ones I played anyway.

You wouldn’t really play Micro Machines on the Megadrive all day, for weeks.

GTA etc is bloody addictive, and some kids prefer living in Los Santos than the real world.

Mint Sauce

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I often see people younger than me reminiscing about things that are completely false. For instance lads in their twenties or thirties harking back to the good old days when they played outside instead of playing video games. If you're under the age of forty home computers and video game consoles have existed all your life.

I'm 40, had an Atari, a Commodore Amiga, younger relatives had Segas and Nintendos. Still played outside though.

wakka12

beauf wrote: »

How are you different.

You like them are focused on the past.

What about all the hardship today?

Huh? You can like historical photos out of interest and not want today to be like it was then

I too find it weird though whenever I see any old photos of grafton street or wherever pop up on facebook I know therell be somebody in the comments saying it was so much better back then and giving no reasons why, yet it looks nearly the exact same and its nice today so I dont see where it all apparently went wrong. I think some people just say it nearly as a reflex action, about anywhere in the past, completely rose tinted glasses

BrokenArrows

Every generation looks on the previous generation with "rose tinted" views.

I watched an old american movie from 1958 called "12 angry men". In it a guy says "back in my parents day kids had respect, etc etc etc "

Ever generation is the same.

mariaalice

Memphis Scarce Sweet-talk wrote: »

We'll get there again soon...

That's an interesting current theme as well i.e we are reversing in the western world, as a society and in wealth etc.

EdgeCase

Mint Sauce wrote: »

I'm 40, had an Atari, a Commodore Amiga, younger relatives had Segas and Nintendos. Still played outside though.

We used to play our Nintendo Gameboys outside!

FelaniaMump

lalababa wrote: »

While people on social welfare can live the same as the middle class of the 60's/70's

You don't actually believe that bollocks do you?

FelaniaMump

KungPao wrote: »

Ah but in my day, you’d have a fifa95 session with the lads, then head out and play actual football afterwards.

So exactly the same as my kids and their friends now then?

riffmongous

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I often see people younger than me reminiscing about things that are completely false. For instance lads in their twenties or thirties harking back to the good old days when they played outside instead of playing video games. If you're under the age of forty home computers and video game consoles have existed all your life.

They existed but we couldn't afford them!

mariaalice

riffmongous wrote: »

They existed but we couldn't afford them!

That a good point, just because they had it everyone had it, its living in a bubble.

FelaniaMump

mariaalice wrote: »

That a good point, just because they had it everyone had it, its living in a bubble.

The poster made no comment about everyone having them at all. But plenty of people did. I was too poor, but my cousins had the lot.
The point being, not everyone was outside being sweet little healthy urchins.....

It's fake nostalgia. Harking back to times that never actually existed.

EdgeCase

There are people who reminisce about the great old days of Telecom Éireann when everything was all high tech and wonderful.

I read the history of it and they were diabolically bad in the 1970s and early 80s to the point that the telephone service in a lot of parts of the country was like something that belonged in a museum of 1920s technology.

It then installed a bunch of digital exchanges in the 80s and briefly was cutting edge until it didn't invest and got passed out by the world again and was a relatively laggard by the mid 90s.

If you wanted to make a call from Cork to Dublin, you'd nearly need to consider taking out a mortgage and there was basically no internet.

It was bog standard and grossly overpriced.

Likewise people going on about the old Irish Rail being nice. It was rough, really inconsistent, the trains were often clapped out bone shakers and it usually smelled like an old pub.

Kilometres na gcopaleen

It's a weird one and a phenomenon I've noticed too on online groups. FWIW, in my experience, Dublin is safer, cheerier than it was in the 1990s when I first started wandering about it regularly. I still hear of break ins and muggings but especially the latter seem far less common than back then. It is strange seeing people saying how much better things were back in the day when my abiding impression of Dublin in the late '70s and the '80s was a poor city being destroyed by heroin addiction. Of course addiction and all concommitant problems still exist but they don't seem to define the city the way they used to so it seems strange that people are like "ah back in the day things were great." The amount of people who think that cops should be battering people is frightening too, everyone invokes Lugs Brannigan like he put the whole place to rights.

Franz Von Peppercorn

riffmongous wrote: »

They existed but we couldn't afford them!

Oh come on. I remember lots of kids coming back from Christmas break with these things.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Kilometres na gcopaleen wrote: »

It's a weird one and a phenomenon I've noticed too on online groups. FWIW, in my experience, Dublin is safer, cheerier than it was in the 1990s when I first started wandering about it regularly. I still hear of break ins and muggings but especially the latter seem far less common than back then. It is strange seeing people saying how much better things were back in the day when my abiding impression of Dublin in the late '70s and the '80s was a poor city being destroyed by heroin addiction. Of course addiction and all concommitant problems still exist but they don't seem to define the city the way they used to so it seems strange that people are like "ah back in the day things were great." The amount of people who think that cops should be battering people is frightening too, everyone invokes Lugs Brannigan like he put the whole place to rights.

Right.

There’s an underestimation of how poor it was in places. But also not everybody was poor. The south side existed. The we were all poor doesn’t seem right either.

FelaniaMump

Kilometres na gcopaleen wrote: »

It's a weird one and a phenomenon I've noticed too on online groups. FWIW, in my experience, Dublin is safer, cheerier than it was in the 1990s when I first started wandering about it regularly. I still hear of break ins and muggings but especially the latter seem far less common than back then. It is strange seeing people saying how much better things were back in the day when my abiding impression of Dublin in the late '70s and the '80s was a poor city being destroyed by heroin addiction. Of course addiction and all concommitant problems still exist but they don't seem to define the city the way they used to so it seems strange that people are like "ah back in the day things were great." The amount of people who think that cops should be battering people is frightening too, everyone invokes Lugs Brannigan like he put the whole place to rights.

Completely agree. Feels far safer in Dublin City Centre now than I ever remember it being.
I think people confuse the actual past with films and Maeve Binchy books. They talk about halcyon days that never actually existed. I wouldn't want to go back to any previous iteration of Ireland, for all the problems we may have now we had far worse ones in any previous time.

ELM327

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I often see people younger than me reminiscing about things that are completely false. For instance lads in their twenties or thirties harking back to the good old days when they played outside instead of playing video games. If you're under the age of forty home computers and video game consoles have existed all your life.

I'm in my early thirties (just!) and we played football, tip the can, kerbs most nights, and the odd videogame thrown in.
We stayed out until we were called in (past dark sometimes) or for the simpsons new episode on sky1 at 6 on sundays.


It may have been false for you, but it certainly was a reality for me and others in my social circle of similar age.

valoren

And the photo's all appear to show the street's during good weather, during the summer etc. You'd think it was the Med!

I am sure, say, Cook Street in Cork City was just as ****ing miserable on a drizzly, December afternoon in 1948 as it is in 2018.

Kilometres na gcopaleen

One thing I will say is apparent from old photos, that city and town streets looked better, with less street furniture and if you go back far enough, litter just does not seem to have been that much of a problem. You had better, clearer vistas but that does not speak to how people's lives fared.

I also suspect at 60 or whatever age, the world was almost always better when you were 10 or 20, regardless of material circumstances.

CrankyHaus

One big change is that social problems that used to be restricted to Dublin and a few other places have gone nationwide. This has had a wrenching effect on rural areas where people have had less chance to adjust to the new circumstances. Meanwhile much of Dublin has improved, or at least not got much worse. I know the parts of the North Inner city that were rough and desolate in my youth are much improved and very vibrant, though still scaldy in parts.

I think the Irish Times MRBI study in 2004 was the first time it was recorded that widespread drug use and other issues previously considered Dublin only ("Hill16 is junkies only" as the country GAA gabs would chant) had gone national so the change in many rural areas probably happened from the 90s.

FelaniaMump

CrankyHaus wrote: »

One big change is that social problems that used to be restricted to Dublin and a few other places have gone nationwide. This has had a wrenching effect on rural areas where people have had less chance to adjust to the new circumstances. Meanwhile much of Dublin has improved, or at least not got much worse. I know the parts of the North Inner city that were rough and desolate in my youth are much improved and very vibrant, though still scaldy in parts.

I think the Irish Times MRBI study in 2004 was the first time it was recorded that widespread drug use and other issues previously considered Dublin only ("Hill16 is junkies only" as the country GAA gabs would chant) had gone national so the change in many rural areas probably happened from the 90s.

Great example of the point at hand: there were no problems that were exlcusive to Dublin! They were always nationwide, there were people taking drugs in Sligo and Castlebar and Tipperary and even in little villages. There was the perception that it was a Dublin only problem, and the perception has changed to understand that its everywhere: its only the perception that has changed.

murpho999

valoren wrote: »

And the photo's all appear to show the street's during good weather, during the summer etc. You'd think it was the Med!

I am sure, say, Cook Street in Cork City was just as ****ing miserable on a drizzly, December afternoon in 1948 as it is in 2018.

In the old days people knew not to spell plurals with apostrophes that everybody seems to do now!:D

murpho999

mariaalice wrote: »

There was different crime, also a lot of people were locked up unofficially, In the mid-twentieth century, Grangegorman Mental Hospital had patient population of approximately 2,000 people, staff also live in. Even in 1965 it had 1,628 patients.

There was an asylum/mental hospital in Galway with even more inmates/patients and when it was to be closed down there was protests locally about loosing the jobs because it was a big employer. imagine protesting to keep a mental hospital open because it was a big employer.

There was crime then.

It's people who commit crimes and people have not changed.

Sexual abuse was more rife then and unreported. Corruption was an issue too.

The only difference is drug related crime.

People got murdered, fought when drunk etc just like today.

Bobtheman

JupiterKid wrote: »

I’m member of a couple of FB groups that put up old photos of Dublin and other places in Ireland and they are interesting to see.

One thing I note from many of the comments from some of the members posting up is stuff like “how times were so much better back then”, “no crime”, “respect for authority” and how Dublin and Ireland have gone “to hell” in the past 20 years.

Why the selective nostalgia of a much poorer country where there was real hardship, the religious reigned supreme and abused countless vulnerable women and children?

Some posters on these sites even come out with casual racism and homophobia. Would these posters (mostly older people I note) prefer a return to those times?

Thoughts?

Ah jesus give it a rest. With your Liberal whining. People are entitled to recollect the past even through Rose tinted glasses. One thing we didn't have is nanny state liberalism and bloody face book
Don't kid yourself that your age group aren't racist too that's when your heads are out of yer arses
As for the poverty stuff Ireland was even in the 80s a lot richer than most of the World

FelaniaMump

Bobtheman wrote: »

Ah jesus give it a rest. With your Liberal whining. People are entitled to recollect the past even through Rose tinted glasses. One thing we didn't have is nanny state liberalism and bloody face book
Don't kid yourself that your age group aren't racist too that's when your heads are out of yer arses

And other people are allowed to point out that their recollections are less than accurate, or is your free speech only for some people?

murpho999

Bobtheman wrote: »

Ah jesus give it a rest. With your Liberal whining. People are entitled to recollect the past even through Rose tinted glasses. One thing we didn't have is nanny state liberalism and bloody face book
Don't kid yourself that your age group aren't racist too that's when your heads are out of yer arses
As for the poverty stuff Ireland was even in the 80s a lot richer than most of the World

What the hell is that?

riffmongous

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Oh come on. I remember lots of kids coming back from Christmas break with these things.

We couldn't, not sure what else to tell you. I paid for my first console with my confirmation money

freshpopcorn

I would like to see what Ireland was back like then to be honest.
I'd be from outside Dublin so they'd be different issues/etc.
I'd mainly like to see were people happy/etc.

trixi001

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I often see people younger than me reminiscing about things that are completely false. For instance lads in their twenties or thirties harking back to the good old days when they played outside instead of playing video games. If you're under the age of forty home computers and video game consoles have existed all your life.

They existed - but lots of homes didn't have them as they couldn't afford them

I'm 35 - we definitely didn't grow up with computer games.

One set of my cousins had them, my other 10 "sets" of cousins didn't.
When my cousins got the super Nintendo- we got their old Atari 2600 - this was probably in the early 90's - so I was about 9 years old.

gandalf

FFS I remember growing up in the 70's and 80's and it was a depressing hole. Things are much better now. Ireland is a much better country especially as we have finally got the jackboot of the church off our throats. It's not perfect but it is a far more tolerant country than it was.

I have some very conservative close family members who would be firmly in the "the country was better in the past" brigade but its purely because of the liberalisation of marriage, women getting control over their bodies and the decline of their beloved church in modern Ireland.

lawred2

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I often see people younger than me reminiscing about things that are completely false. For instance lads in their twenties or thirties harking back to the good old days when they played outside instead of playing video games. If you're under the age of forty home computers and video game consoles have existed all your life.

I actually did play outside all day during summers

And I also played computer games

Fairly sure kids have always managed both

lawred2

EdgeCase wrote: »

There are people who reminisce about the great old days of Telecom Éireann when everything was all high tech and wonderful.

I read the history of it and they were diabolically bad in the 1970s and early 80s to the point that the telephone service in a lot of parts of the country was like something that belonged in a museum of 1920s technology.

It then installed a bunch of digital exchanges in the 80s and briefly was cutting edge until it didn't invest and got passed out by the world again and was a relatively laggard by the mid 90s.

If you wanted to make a call from Cork to Dublin, you'd nearly need to consider taking out a mortgage and there was basically no internet.

It was bog standard and grossly overpriced.

Likewise people going on about the old Irish Rail being nice. It was rough, really inconsistent, the trains were often clapped out bone shakers and it usually smelled like an old pub.

yup

remember taking a train back from Dublin after an AI final sometime mid nineties... not a single bit of unoccupied space

It just parked itself on the line somewhere in the midlands for about 2 hours

Think the engine gave in