Before the smoking ban

remember trains had a smoking carriage and designated smoking areas in restaurants.

night clubs were the worst. on the dance floor and everyone smoking.

is it banned in cars with children now?

i always get worried on planes with the little ashtrays. how old is this thing?

Teachers could smoke while teaching a class at one time.

Some college lecture halls still have big 'no smoking' signs up. Probably from the 80s

I remember smoking was allowed on coaches - it was awful. Distinctly remember a mammy pushing a trolley around Quinnsworth with a benson in her lips and a tot on top of trolley. It was not allowed, but ignored.

Why did people never smoke at mass?

I remember being in hospital in the mid 80s, and a woman in the bed across from me used to ask the nurse to turn off her oxygen so she could smoke....

Don't remember any teachers smoking in class, but one teacher I had used to "step out" 2 or 3 times during a 40 min class for a smoke!

There was no ban on smoking in offices up to the late 90s, the woman who sat across from me was a chain smoker - it was vile!

Good question. I reckon it was maybe mid 70s that I saw it.

Smoking inside shops was rare; except you'd sometimes find tiny shops where the owner was smoking themselves. Common areas in the indoor shopping centres usually had smoking bans but the older ones, e.g. the Square mentioned up-thread, would have had smoking originally. Much of the original interior there was brown tinged by design, handily!

Most restaurants and cafes were down to a small smoking section, if at all, by the time of the ban. Very few offices allowed smoking, the Civil Service had banned in many years before but you would still find exceptions - particularly small businesses where the owner smoked.

Going to NI for the few years until they brought theirs in was always a bit of a surprise; as it still is going to suitably small bars in Denmark/Portugal/Netherlands where they have ban exceptions. I do remember going to see a DJ in NI for Paddys Weekend 2007; having Bensons and cans inside a nightclub made it feel like he was playing a gaff party.

Great uncle of mine died due to the oxygen supply and cigarette 'problem' in the 80s - albeit in Chicago, not here.

Smoking in the cinema.

smoking in restaurants

smoking on planes

smoking in dressing rooms (sports)

smoking on buses (top deck)

smoking in the office and the canteen

Smoking in lap dance clubs

Was checking when the public transport ban came in - 1988

That would be why I don't remember it. Well, legally - upstairs on Nitelinks were smokefests until the overall ban came in and Dublin Bus started caring

Old enough to remember the smoking rooms in the hospitals.

I remember after a night out in a pub or a club and my clothes would be reeling in smoke and I hated it so much. I still can’t stand the smell of smoke. Martin maybe been a crap leader, but I am forever grateful that he brought in that smoking ban

You must be flying in some well dodgy countries to still see that?

I remember hopping on an Aeroflot from Shannon heading to Leningrad now called St. Petersburg. The plane had come originally from Cuba and I was seated next to a lad who proceeded to smoke his finest Havana's practically all the way until we reached our destination. I almost retched on an number of occasions throughout that flight.

Lucky fecker. What had you going to Leningrad?

Our teachers didn’t smoke in the classroom, but on the rare occasions when you had to call to the staff room, you could have cut slices off the thick fog of fag smoke.

The idea of having a no smoking area on a plane or a bus or any small or medium sized restaurant was ridiculous, like having a no pissing area in a swimming pool.

I remember having to plead with staff in one restaurant to NOT give out ashtrays in the non smoking area.

It depended on the size of plane. The smoking was at the back and it wouldn't be so bad on a large jumbo jet or the like.

But you are quite right about the failure to maintain non smoking areas in restaurants.

The airport was mostly non smoking in the 1990s , but had smoking areas. I once challenged the guard who was smoking at the entrance to the airside area, where you produce your boarding pass, and he said that it was his birthday!

Smoking carriages on trains continued well past that though didn't they? I only became a regular on the Dublin -Mayo train round the turn of the century and I think I remember them...

Yeah, but they also had smoking in business class, so the front row of coach non smoking was just behind the back row of business smoking. Yuech.