Had one of those myself, but long lost unfortunately. Still have the commemorative Harp tankard with the results on it.
Glass bottles should make a comeback.
I just wrote the longest most poetic comment and lost it when I accidently closed Reddit. FFS.
You didn’t drink it before posting this did you?
This era of Irish history is really interesting to me.
We were over the hill on an economic recession and high unemployment that was the 80s and Italia 1990 instilled such a sense of national pride. It was the first tangible reason to be proud to be Irish that we’d had in a while and it was glorious.
It’s hard to explain but football was EVERYWHERE! Kids pretended to be their favourite player when they played football and primary schools churned out painted Irish flags from art classes. Stickers, mugs, full page spread posters in newspapers, it never ended.
And it wasn’t a malicious kind of nationalism, it was a pure, unrivalled pride to be Irish that spread through the country like wildfire. It was an excitement that hummed in the air. And it was a cracking summer which only made it better.
After that, 2 years later, we won the Eurovision, and the next year and the one after that. That was nothing compared to what happened next. During the break in the 94 Eurovision we all watched a single dancer enter the stage. This was the first showing of Riverdance and nobody expected what came next.
Up until this point Irish dancing was a pretty traditional thing and although it was interesting it seemed to have not changed for as long as it had existed and was as flashy as expensive dresses and bouncy hair. Suddenly, we were watching it being rebranded in front of our eyes into something new and incredible!
It stopped everyone in their tracks and people came in from other rooms to see what it was. If you [watch the video](https://youtu.be/w0v_pu6miJ8) you’ll hear the huge roar of the audience at the end. That roar came through the TV, through my home and I remember people going out of their houses whooping and shouting to talk to their neighbours about what they’d just seen.
It was everywhere after that, the radio, newspaper, magazines, TV shows, interviews, and when the show took to the road and went international it continued the national pride. It helped to cement out national identity.
After this, the football insanity began again with the World Cup in 94 in the US. A new song, new merchandise, this time there were collectable pop-up cards in your cereal and the country lost its collective mind in pure excitement and joy again.
To understand how big these things were, here I am typing this and my phone autofilled “Riverdance”. How many other dance shows have made it to predictive text? When you hear “olé olé olé” being chanted you think of Ireland, even though that the chant originated in Mexico in 86. “Ooh ah Paul McGrath” was appropriated in 94 from poor Eric Cantona.
It was like surfing except when your wave broke, you went straight onto a new fresh wave. And then another one.
In these times as well we had serious block busters movies like:
1990: Home Alone, Ghost, Pretty Woman, Total Recall, Back to the Future III, Die Hard II etc.
1991: Hook, Terminator 2, the Silence of the Lambs, the Addams Family, Beauty and the Beast etc.
1992: Aladdin, Wayne’s World, Beethoven, Basic Instinct, Batman Returns, Lethal Weapon 3 etc.
1993: the Fugitive, Jurassic Park, Mrs Doubtfire, Falling Down, Sleepless in Seattle and the Last Action Hero etc
1994: the Lion King, Forrest Gump, the Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Pulp Fiction, Speed, Ace Ventura etc.
After all if this excitement in a 4 year period, we launched into the Celtic Tiger and the sky was the limit. Construction, raising of standards, development of services, foreign holidays, opportunity, money! And we rode that wave all the way to 2008 when things went to shite.
Packie Bonner
Chris Morris
Steve Staunton
Mick McCarthy
Kevin Moran
Ronnie Whelan
Paul McGrath
Ray Houghton
John Aldridge
Tony Cascarino
Kevin Sheedy
David O’Leary
Andy Townsend
Chris Hughton
Bernie Slaven
John Sheridan
Niall Quinn
Frank Stapleton
David Kelly
John Byrne
Alan McLoughlin
Gerry Peyton
6 comments
Class!
Had one of those myself, but long lost unfortunately. Still have the commemorative Harp tankard with the results on it.
Glass bottles should make a comeback.
I just wrote the longest most poetic comment and lost it when I accidently closed Reddit. FFS.
You didn’t drink it before posting this did you?
This era of Irish history is really interesting to me.
We were over the hill on an economic recession and high unemployment that was the 80s and Italia 1990 instilled such a sense of national pride. It was the first tangible reason to be proud to be Irish that we’d had in a while and it was glorious.
It’s hard to explain but football was EVERYWHERE! Kids pretended to be their favourite player when they played football and primary schools churned out painted Irish flags from art classes. Stickers, mugs, full page spread posters in newspapers, it never ended.
And it wasn’t a malicious kind of nationalism, it was a pure, unrivalled pride to be Irish that spread through the country like wildfire. It was an excitement that hummed in the air. And it was a cracking summer which only made it better.
After that, 2 years later, we won the Eurovision, and the next year and the one after that. That was nothing compared to what happened next. During the break in the 94 Eurovision we all watched a single dancer enter the stage. This was the first showing of Riverdance and nobody expected what came next.
Up until this point Irish dancing was a pretty traditional thing and although it was interesting it seemed to have not changed for as long as it had existed and was as flashy as expensive dresses and bouncy hair. Suddenly, we were watching it being rebranded in front of our eyes into something new and incredible!
It stopped everyone in their tracks and people came in from other rooms to see what it was. If you [watch the video](https://youtu.be/w0v_pu6miJ8) you’ll hear the huge roar of the audience at the end. That roar came through the TV, through my home and I remember people going out of their houses whooping and shouting to talk to their neighbours about what they’d just seen.
It was everywhere after that, the radio, newspaper, magazines, TV shows, interviews, and when the show took to the road and went international it continued the national pride. It helped to cement out national identity.
After this, the football insanity began again with the World Cup in 94 in the US. A new song, new merchandise, this time there were collectable pop-up cards in your cereal and the country lost its collective mind in pure excitement and joy again.
To understand how big these things were, here I am typing this and my phone autofilled “Riverdance”. How many other dance shows have made it to predictive text? When you hear “olé olé olé” being chanted you think of Ireland, even though that the chant originated in Mexico in 86. “Ooh ah Paul McGrath” was appropriated in 94 from poor Eric Cantona.
It was like surfing except when your wave broke, you went straight onto a new fresh wave. And then another one.
In these times as well we had serious block busters movies like:
1990: Home Alone, Ghost, Pretty Woman, Total Recall, Back to the Future III, Die Hard II etc.
1991: Hook, Terminator 2, the Silence of the Lambs, the Addams Family, Beauty and the Beast etc.
1992: Aladdin, Wayne’s World, Beethoven, Basic Instinct, Batman Returns, Lethal Weapon 3 etc.
1993: the Fugitive, Jurassic Park, Mrs Doubtfire, Falling Down, Sleepless in Seattle and the Last Action Hero etc
1994: the Lion King, Forrest Gump, the Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Pulp Fiction, Speed, Ace Ventura etc.
After all if this excitement in a 4 year period, we launched into the Celtic Tiger and the sky was the limit. Construction, raising of standards, development of services, foreign holidays, opportunity, money! And we rode that wave all the way to 2008 when things went to shite.
Packie Bonner
Chris Morris
Steve Staunton
Mick McCarthy
Kevin Moran
Ronnie Whelan
Paul McGrath
Ray Houghton
John Aldridge
Tony Cascarino
Kevin Sheedy
David O’Leary
Andy Townsend
Chris Hughton
Bernie Slaven
John Sheridan
Niall Quinn
Frank Stapleton
David Kelly
John Byrne
Alan McLoughlin
Gerry Peyton
Jack Charlton
Hon the Boys in Green!
I was expecting breast milk