Where Were You When...

[cillian32]

I can’t remember if it was the first or second Provisional IRA ceasefire of the 1990s, but I remember being in primary school and after am lón all the different classes would run to form up into their respective líne.

Our principal came out and told us we were going to have a minute’s silence in the hope that the ceasefire would hold.

The mother told me that I was on my father’s lap during the 1988 Euro match against England when Houghton scored. I was only a few months old and the father forgot I existed when the goal came, so he jumped off his seat and I sailed through the air and wasn’t caught.

Im finding it really hard to belive your 24

[skiii]

Standing in second class looking out at a slanted schoolyard as, led by Brother Mel, we prayed that the world would not end before 3 o'clock.Not knowing either whether the implosion would come from above or below,from Grange or Ballisodare or even Easkey.A day in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis,slightly more doom laden than usual.

[jo9jo]

I distinctly remember sitting on the sofa eating a bag of tayto and drinking a can of cola looking at Charles J Haughey mount the victors podium on the Chimps ( ) eel_is_he after winning the Tour de France in 1987.
Jacque Chirac was embarrassingly trying to hog some of the limelight by claiming them Victor was married to a French lady.
Haughey later went on to further glory at Italia 90.

[yellowfish]

Family history, not really connected to Ireland. (But the op asked for WW2.

My father was 12 at the wars start, he used to stand on Epsom downs with his friends and watch the planes fight overhead. He said that when everyone thought the country would be invaded his impression was that the majority of people would die, that the civilian population was so stirred up it was ready to fight in the streets. Of course these are the impressions of a young teen at the height of the war, but they are what he believed at the time.
During the war my father along with other boy scouts was used by the local defense (homegaurd) as message carriers, my father was sent to Epsom park to deliver a message to some troops there, he arrived as the place was attacked by stukas, he saw a stuka drop a bomb on the band stand, killing a large number of Canadian troops who had been using it.

My Grandfather (Adopted) went through the entire war from beginning to end, For the rest of his life he would mutter to himself, occasionally going into long fits of swearing and having what we called "blackouts" Along with other behaviors it is now obvious he needed a lot of help, instead of which everyone just turned a blind eye when he rolled his car repeatedly or jumped into a bottle for days on end.

One more, my mother who was 13 years younger than my father, was born on battle of britain day, due to complications her mother had to go to hospital to deliver, she was taken to hospital in a taxi with straw bales on to whilst pilots tried to (And succeded in) kill eachother overhead.

[ruserious]

My Grandfather remembers as a boy during WWII coming across a huge field full of donkeys in the southside of Cork city. He later learned they had been brought from all over Ireland and were getting ready to be shipped to the UK for food.

[inherit the deficit]

At my grandads when we heard that Thatcher was leaving Downing Street for the last time.
That got a good cheer I tell you.

[dent]

I was on the 34th floor. of an LA hotel when the WTC was hit. That caused lots of problems; the hotel was hit by a 4.5 tht morning

I was on a fantastic IT project in Copenhagen, when the news came through. It was the project of milk & honey - casino nights in the Royal Palace, dining in the best restaurants, flying business class everywhere and getting project presents every month. The American people on the project were all in tears as the watched CNN on the net. I was in tears later as all projects were cut back including ours....I never got a project like it since. F*** you, Osama !

I had an odd experience coming back the following Friday, as everyone was on edge. I was flying BA business class and 2 (what looked like) Eastern European/Russian type guys got on at the last minute and sat in the 2 seats to my right. If there is an idea of what business class passengers look like, they didn't seem to fit the bill. Anyway, they kept muttering away during the flight and when the PA annoucement mentioned that we were 30 minutes out from landing at Heathrow, the guy next to me asked me to let him out, and the other guy followed ! They went up to the top of the plane, and one went into the toilet while the other waited. The guy came out, the other went in but the original guy waited outside for his buddy ! What made the whole thing worse was a stewardess pulled the curtain, so I couldn't see what went on - I was sweating then. Fortunately the other guy came out and they both walked down towards me.....phew ! I felt proud though that I had decided to rush at them if they had tried something.

[dent]

My grandad stood guard over Michael Collins body when he was laid out on the slab in Shanakiel Military Hospital (I think it was a British hospital for veterans from WW1), in case the rebels would try to steal the body. EDIT : There is supposed to be a photo of it as well, somewhere in the family.

10 years earlier, his brother drowned on the Titanic, so this year's commemorations are especially poignant for our family.

Interestingly, the graveyard for the Titanic victims is in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and it was in Halifax on Dec. 6th 1917 that my grandmother's brother was killed in a freak accident when he was serving in the Royal Navy. A French munitions ship collided with a Norwegian cargo ship and blew half the harbour away. My granduncle was a sailor on the HMS Highflyer and was one of over 1,500 people killed. So I have two granduncles who died in that area within 6 years of each other.

This is the story of that disaster Halifax Explosion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[redhead]

At my grandads when we heard that Thatcher was leaving Downing Street for the last time.
That got a good cheer I tell you.

I danced round the room even though I was no longer living there!

[redhead]

It's not a personal experience but it might be of historical interest to the Yankophiles.

My father was in Grosvenor Street in London in 1965 when a well dressed man in his 60's keeled over in front of him from what looked like a heart attack. As he went to help he was shooed away by a bunch of officious looking people who appeared from nowhere in seconds. When he saw a picture of the man staring out from the front of that evening's newspapers he realised it was Adlai Stevenson.

Adlai Stevenson II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia