ah stop, it was fucking savage, sure my auld fella was paying the mortgage from England, we had nothing, it drives me ape listening to lads going on with misty eyed revisionism about the 1980âs, about out playing untill half ten at night, it wasnât playing I was, I was stuck in some hellhole of bog outside Lisdoonvarnra at 9/10 years of age untill 11 at night, working for some pig ignorant slave driver of a farmer, bagging or footing turf for a fiver a day if I was lucky, my poor little arms breaking, the same when baling hay, stacking bales, the big damp ones breaking my young arms, christ it was a horrific time to be alive, I remember my parents fighting aswell, it was all financial pressure, Crying myself to sleep to drown out the shouting
Let us pause in lifeâs pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
Thereâs a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
Thereâs a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
With a worn heart whose better days are oâer:
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
Great things about growing up in the 80âs:
Going to matches
Going to training
Playing sport
Heading off through the fields for the day
Swimming in the local river
Not so great things about growing up in the 80âs:
The near poverty we lived in
Bog one and two only
Giving back the rented VCR in mid January
Pushing the car to start it
Brutality by teachers
The power of the church over a community
Relying on hand me downs for 90% of your possessions
When I think back to the way some teachers treated kids and teenagers when I was growing up I want to go and piss on their graves.
The pecking order in my primary and post primary schools was Doctors, guards and bank staff along with business owners kids that got it easy. No matter what the cunts did it was just hi jinks.
However if it was the factory workers son or daughter that put a toe over the line the book was thrown at them.
Some of the stuff that teachers said to lads from the town was unbelievable, they were also discriminated against on the school teams. The local chemists sons had to get a full game regardless.
We once had a miserable cunt of an English teacher that walked around the class and stood over each pupil and went though their families and then gave her estimatation about where theyâd end up.
I.e. " Tommy, your father is on the dole. Youâll end up like that, you can give up now"
Itâs an awful pity someone didnât stand up and take the jaw off of her with a punch.
We all knew this was so so wrong but you couldnât talk back to a teacher then.
i had a lazy right eye as a young boy and one particular teacher thought he could bate it out of me with a cane. if you went home complaining then youd be bate again at home. we got some awful batings. i vividly remember the banning of corporal punishment in the early 80s, i was in 6th class and would get a good bating every week up to then. jesus i remember the euphoria around the yard at the time and the sense of fuck you you dirty fucking bastards you have nothing. the teachers were fucking seething for weeks and we let them have it of course with cheek and backchat. cunts . thats a really nice memory.
Thatâs one of the great questions buddy. Do you condemn the kids to a lifetime of misery because the parents donât work or do you throw money at them for doing nothing.
Remember when we were going up to 6th class the teacher retired. He was a right vicious bastard with a big blackthorn stick. So the guy from 5th moved up with us. He had a smaller stick but was well able to use it. We hid it once above the ceiling panels for a few days, he went apeshit. âLarryâ he used to call it.
