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Cork In The 80's

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  • 28-10-2022 10:42pm
    #1
    Straight Talker
    Registered Users Posts: 2,104 ✭✭✭


    This sort of follows on from a discussion in the Cork scumbags thread, but what memories do people have of the city in the 80's? Was it as bad as people say it was? It was a decade of factory closures, mass unemployment, joyriding, moving statues and lots of strikes, but there was some good things as well. The music was pretty decent, and at least back then Cork used to win all Irelands on a fairly frequent basis!

    Cork 1990 All Ireland Senior Hurling and Football Champions



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    #2
    Mav11
    Registered Users Posts: 2,243 ✭✭✭Mav11


    Cork was brilliant in the 80's. I really don't recognise the dismal picture that many paint of the city at the time. Times I would walk from Highfield rugby club across the city to St. Lukes at 3am, full of gargle, with never a bother or a threat. Then you also had places like CoCo's and the Gay Future opening up and the music scene (Sir Henry's) was fantastic.

    All in all Cork city was a great place to be a young fellah in the 80's.



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    #3
    JackieChang
    Registered Users Posts: 1,494 ✭✭✭JackieChang


    You're going to get an extremely biased response. People who remember the 80s will be looking back with rose tinted glasses. This is surely one of the reasons extremely shyte "institutions" like Lennoxes survive in Cork. People are reminiscing about the time they were sent down the Lennoxes with 20 pence from mammy on a summers eve. It's gotten to the stage where if I hear the phrase "Cork instatushon baiii" it's almost guaranteed to be shyte. Note: I'm not from Cork.

    Anyway I don't remember the 80s, I was a whipper snapper. But I remember the 90s and of course that was the best decade ever through my own rose tinted glasses. Everything tasted better, movies were better, etc etc etc.



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    #4
    Mav11
    Registered Users Posts: 2,243 ✭✭✭Mav11


    Of course, it depends on your own personal circumstances at the time.

    For me in my 20's, I was in college and working during that decade. As Hilda Ogden used to say the world was my lobster!! I do recall a great sense of optimism and change during that decade. New types of pubs, clubs were opening up. New bridges were being built over the river, and new retail outlets were opening in the city. To name but a few of the changes.

    The influence of the church was well in decline and all this without the level of the drugs scourge and anti social behaviour that's there now!! What's not to like? All in all a great decade, IMO of course.

    But probably a lot dependent on whether you were working or not!



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    #5
    Mav11
    Registered Users Posts: 2,243 ✭✭✭Mav11


    Plus there was no shortage of money, even with those that were not working. See the RTE piece below.

    Not sure about the haircuts or the sin of serving drink in the wrong glass😁


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpyE23OKnWc



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    #6
    Straight Talker
    Registered Users Posts: 2,104 ✭✭✭Straight Talker


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119807506#Comment_119807506

    Watch what you're saying about Lennoxes biy!😁

    Cork 1990 All Ireland Senior Hurling and Football Champions



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    #7
    Straight Talker
    Registered Users Posts: 2,104 ✭✭✭Straight Talker


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119807599#Comment_119807599

    It was around 1989 wasn't it when the Merchants Quay centre opened? It's in desperate need of a revamp now, but back then it was a breath of fresh air to the city. I think the area around Merchants Quay pre shopping centre had fallen into serious disrepair. The two bridges down by Jurys Inn, the Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera bridges opened in the 80's as well i think.

    Cork 1990 All Ireland Senior Hurling and Football Champions



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    #8
    Mav11
    Registered Users Posts: 2,243 ✭✭✭Mav11


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119808118#Comment_119808118

    And the Christy Ring Bridge. There was serious dereliction on Merchants Quay pre the Shopping centre. Having said that, I'm not sure that the shopping centre was much of an improvement!



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    #9
    Straight Talker
    Registered Users Posts: 2,104 ✭✭✭Straight Talker


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119808148#Comment_119808148

    Well pre shopping centre we did have shop fronts. A lot of them were closed and derelict alright, but instead they were replaced by an ugly brown wall! It was a massive mistake in the planning for that shopping centre, not to have some shop fronts that opened up on to the quayside imo.

    Cork 1990 All Ireland Senior Hurling and Football Champions



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    #10
    JackieChang
    Registered Users Posts: 1,494 ✭✭✭JackieChang


    Agreed, it has the look of one of those old unwed mother and child work houses / prisons. Or perhaps a coal factory.

    I also get bad vibes whenever I walk down that way. Just a big brown slab of a wall as Straight Talker says and nothing else. Very dark and gloomy.



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    #11
    saabsaab
    Registered Users Posts: 8,208 ✭✭✭saabsaab


    A lot of places closed in the early eighties lots of unemployment. Dead enough in the city centre midweek but things were cheap.



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