Listening to the Philip Boucher Hayes climate documentary there. He had Mary Harney on about difficult policies to introduce and she references the banning of smoky coal in Dublin was the one she was most proud of. They can link significant health benefits to that initiative.
Wanted to get a visual reminder of what it was like in the city in 70s/early 80s. Went to youtube and searched for Smog in Dublin, but didn’t get any good results. Anyone got a link?
Found this doc about the Great London Smog of December 1952, but its photo-based.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmrjwAkMveE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmrjwAkMveE)
3 comments
YouTube doesn’t have everything – https://www.rte.ie/archives/2019/1120/1094017-smog-alert/
RTE archives have a few videos
I grew up in Ballyfermot, which is in a natural ‘dip’, the smog used to just hang in the air.
I’d walk home from work and when I’d wash my hair actual sooty dirt washed out of it.
When you washed your face dirt would come off on the cloth.
If you blew your nose, dark flecks would be on the tissue.
The windows would need to be washed every couple of weeks as the dirt would just be streaked along them.
The net curtains would be down and soaked in washing soda several times over the winter because they’d get so dirty.
It was common to have multiple chest Infections during the winter, sometimes developing into bronchitis.
Within the year of the ban being introduced the change in air quality was noticeable.