**** things about the 70s,80s,90s...that don't happen now!

I applied for a passport renewal online. It took 10 minutes. A few days later and I have the tracking for the delivery. And I'm in Germany. I'm honestly amazed that I managed to renew a passport when i am abroad and it was so easy. I even took my own photo, with my phone.

Fog of smoke in the car as well.

Having to head to gig, disco or pub on your own as your friend didn't show up at arranged place and hoping you would bump into them there. H

love this one…and yet the improvement and in some cases eradication of those examples which has massively improved our lives is now lumped in with ‘pc gone mad’ and the ‘green/liberal agenda’ 🤦‍♂️

This is brilliant example and basically describes all my family holidays in the 80s

Driving back from NI with a "smuggled" 14 inch TV in the car and praying that Mr Customs wouldn't jump out from behind a bush to nab you as you crossed the border.

at least ye had a bin collection.

Back in the 80s or early 90s we brought the rubbish to the dump, and of course never on a special spin but when we were on the way to visit the relatives so as kids you had stinking weeks old rubbish inches behind your head in the boot.

And as the last post mentioned, meeting up with someone was a matter of staying in a place for ages till they turned up, and as a backup you'd have an arrangement to leave a message with your folks or their folks that you could ring with a 20p from a payphone if needs be.

Thats of course for those who had phones, and it wasnt that uncommon for houses to not have a phone.

No power cuts? Obviously you were not there!

I forgot about going to the dump. We would drive up to the dump at night with the car lights off as we got closer. Then we would turn off the car and wait quietly for 5 mins. Then full beams and gasp at the number of rats moving in the rubbish. The dump was literally alive. Amazing but scary too! You'd dare not open the car door.

The Gardai telling you not to have that fifth pint… 4 was ok… 5 was bad!

Having to go to Aertel to get footie results and the inevitable waiting.

Dinners being kept warm on a pot of boiling water and ending up as mush.

Smoking on a plane/ train / bus.

Loading PC games via tape (ughhhh the torment).

That noise that came from a PC when you used the internet via phone connection.

The crap internet.

Encyclopedias

The phone book / yellow pages

The [insert washing powder brand] doorstep challenge

I used the 1999-2000 years as an example, but yes that practice was long gone by then. But i still remember a man who bought his new car in Oct-Nov and was for-regging it hoping to make Jan of the new year. But about the 3rd week into Dec, the Guards made him register it! But even now, it's possible to buy in late autumn, and delay registering until the new year, as long as iit'snot on the road.

Parish envelopes.

Edit to add my parents stopped giving them money after Eamon Casey as they'd given money when we had very little while Eamon Casey was funding his kids expensive education in the US.

yeah I forgot a lot of the conductors smoked so they’d head upstairs every so often

I learned about slack when in student accommodation - did the job nicely of keeping the fire going for as long as possible and giving us the heat we needed so desperately

Being asked by dad to change the channel... Getting up, walking over to the 14 inch b&w grundig & pushing the relevant button.

We had one with a dial selector at one stage rather than push buttons.

We'd have "stitches" which was a smack to the face, "Wiggings" which is where they'd tug and twist the hair at the front of your ear and "knuckles" where they'd rap your knuckles with a ruler.

And in evening study if you misbehaved the prefect would have you kneeling. And if that continued, kneeling on a duster, and then kneeling and doing circles (holding your arms out, parallel to the ground and doing small circles with them and then finally circles whilst holding a hurley.

And this was the early to mid 90's.

Jaysus.

Not being in a cable area I remember just reading the TV listings for Super channel and "Sky" and imagining the exotic programming I was missing

These days Gen Z just drive around coked off their heads and drive drunk, but somehow it's considered worse in the 80's & 90's because 'boomers'…

here’s a bit of history on drink drive limits in Ireland - I think it changed from 120 in the late 60s to 100 in late 70s and then 80mg in 90s

Noone quite knew just how many pints you could have without getting caught out with the 120mg limit but I reckon if you had 4 slowly over an evening of say 3 hours you’d probably have been fine considering some of that alcohol would have been processed over those 3 hours

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/52-years-ago-week-november-1969-new-challenge-faced-irish-holohan