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

Would have been preferable to god knows what was in them.

Balding men with comb overs or still cultivating a short back and sides instead of getting rid of it all.

or getting a hair transplant, that option very much open now for men and thankfully the stigma around all that is going away

I remember seeing older chaps with combovers, often with the hair stuck to the bald patch with at least half a tub of Bryllcreem.

A few of the older teachers in my secondary school (early 2000s, close to retirement age by that point) had combovers. It was comical seeing them either reffing a match in bad weather or running to class.

A couple of years after I left school I went to an Osmond gig with one lad from my class. One of them appeared on stage with a snow-white combover. We said he looked just like our old science teacher! We just starting chanting the teacher's name during the chorus of Crazy Horses instead of the actual lyrics!

I haven't seen a combover in quite a while. Nowadays it seems most guys just shave it all off. My hair is long enough to pull back into a ponytail, thus hiding the bald patch at the back. How long I'll get away with that I'll just have to wait and see how it goes I guess.

Speaking of teachers, I remember a lot of them coming to class late, smelling of stale booze and not really teaching us anything. Not that I blame them much, it's not as though I made their job easy…

but on the flip-side there are now plenty of restaurants and takeaways offering much more choice then what was available back in the day. I consider that a fair swap!

OOn the flip side all those nice take aways and restaurants leads to people over eating especially when they have sedentary jobs, many irish people are now overweight or obese, one of highest in Europe

Yeah, every town had an Army and Navy shop.

Probably in 1980s german army gear was still a bit taboo in Europe, that has largely been wiped clean now by the new nazis the Russian army and putin, nobody will touch anything with a Russian flag after this. Russia a terrorist state

Plus there was more of an inter family hand-me-down and second hand shop (pre charity/"vintage" store) scene.

Relatives living in uk sent cheap clothes back to the kids living in Ireland.

That should be brought back, many countries in Europe like Germany and Spain have Sunday closure for retail, all the supermarkets are closed. It doesn't inconvenience that much as you make allowances for it but most importantly it gives retail workers a day off, why should they be penalised in comparison to say office workers. That way everyone can have a family day together or the youngsters can all meet up together on a Saturday night.

I was thinking about that recently, growing up in the '60's & '70's many people only had a bath on a Saturday evening but a good all over wash every morning at the sink. I don't remember being aware of BO from the average person, there was always a few that you would stay well away from but in general it seemed OK (from my memory anyway)

An upstairs or back room the owner had painted black and stuck in a few cheap strip lights and mirrors and called it a "Nightclub" and charged extra for the privilege. The vast majority of them were rubbish and no great loss.

Tv stations would close down at midnight and show teletxt pages people rented PS2 consoles and game cartridges for Nintendo consoles .there used to be a large selection of tech magazines and gaming magazines for Xbox PlayStation and pc before broadband replaced most magazines

Magazines with demo discs for PC or console on the front short demos of the latest games

Getting stuck behind a Telecom Éireann van. They were always crawling along to wherever they were going. The local guy would park up at the exchange near us and you regularly see him sound asleep in the van.

The 1st video rental I saw was a van that used to come around the estate once a week. Looking back I assume it was all pirated stuff.

I go back further to when Telecom Eireann was the P&T. (Department of Post and Telegraphs)

I worked around the corner from a P&T van depot and most days from about 3pm onward, the vans would start to park up on the roadside, out of sight of the yard gate, so that they could roll up in convoy to clock off at 5pm. I am sure the bosses knew, but the unions were so strong that nothing could be said.

I worked for a private telecom firm and we once installed our own equipment in a main Dublin city centre P&T exchange building. There was a tea making station (Kettle) set up at nearly every corner, with lads sitting around having the chats…. all day. I asked what the bosses said about that and was told that they were not allowed in the building and undertook their management duties remotely, from offices located in another building.

I was also involved with pirate radio at the time (70's and 80's) when the P&T were responsible for closing stations down …. while some of their engineers were building and selling transmitters, some of their staff were pirate radio DJ's in their spare time and their postmen dutifully delivered fan-mail to the stations every day.

Only in Ireland …..