My Generation. Too.

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Blindboy from the Rubber Bandits on last week’s Late Late Show

Further to Blindboy Boatclub’s appearance on the Late Late Show where he decried the historic challenges facing his generation.

Frilly Keane writes:

Oh yeah. Inter 1983? Leaving Cert 1985? Then you’re My Generation. And we’d no doss year either. Transition Year ffs. We did our leaving cert 5 years after our Confirmation. Unless you were posh, and got to repeat.

I will give Blindbhoy the CAO form tho’. Ours was much easier to fill out. And the points. None of us managed points for +. And we never heard of Magaloof. But we all knew about sh1tty holiday jobs. Like veg picking, hotel cleaning, factory labouring —– Christ, Murphy’s Evergreen still haunts me.

My Generation know a lot about Corporal Punishment. D’ya know the spikey part of a biro cap? Did ya ever see that stick out of a 10 year old’s lip? Right Through. A smack of the Rolla will do that ya know. Do ya? The sheer thuggery of an Irish National School? But if you had, at least there was a first aid box handy, or some a Health & Safety Regulation lying around requiring a first aider to sort it.

My Generation got on planes too. An Ork return to Heathrow in April 1987 was One Hundred, and Thirty Six POUNDS and twenty two pee. That was two weeks wages. Unless you worked in Cashes. Then it was 2 n’ half.

We got the boat too. It was much cheaper, and you could hitch your way down to the terminal. £9.15 could have got ya on The Innisfallen to Swansea, a manky ferry that when it didn’t stink of Truckers’ sweat and industrial diesel, it ran with sick. And girls swamped in Parkas, sweating, with red eyes, green faces, bulging army slash school bags; crouched in corners with their faces to rumbling walls or thick windows if they got a seat. Sitting in the corridors pretending to be asleep if they didn’t.

These were the girls that were even too afraid to tell a friend. Too afraid of the sneering and mockery. Too afraid of the shame. Too afraid of their families. Too afraid of the nuns the priests and all grey buildings of statutory authority and assumed order. Too afraid of their employers. And some but still too many, too afraid of their teachers and classmates.

Your generation gets to be disgusted, disgusted that her baby would be labelled Illegitimate, and that girl would be classified as an unmarried mother by both generation’s Taxation System. But at least these girls got out.

My generation would all know a school pal who was sent to a Mother and Baby Home. What was the unforgivable Sex Before Marriage to my generation, is now being videoed by yours, on a phone. Liked and hashtagged. FFS.

My Generation learnt of AIDS as a disease spread by Durty Gay Men. And to don’t ever touch them. It’s catching. Did any of your generation be denied health care, a decent send off, and burial into their own family plot because of a virus infection? Did any of your generation be given medical advice by a religious order? Mine did.

My Generation did grow up tho’

We bought houses. In 1993/4 A purchase price of 28k (one bed workers cottage in D8), required almost 10k. In a time of zero first time buyers grants for 2nd hand, Stamp Duty and double digit interest rates. A time when if your wages were over 12.k per annum you were considered high rate earner. 65%. That’s why we all had Saturday jobs. I used to collect glasses in Bad Bobs. I don’t see Paddies doing that anymore.

The drive to Cork could take 6 hours but at least we didn’t need NCTs. I give your generation that crib. Nor did we suffer the pain of penalty points. So yeah, a Terrible infliction on you all. And the toll. Damn your generation and your tolls.

OK. I’m getting silly now. What’s p1ssed me off is that all your whinging and cribbing and finger pointing anti-neo liberal ranting is in the main, Financial.

My generation had nowhere near the opportunities. Our athletes didn’t have National Training Centres of Excellence or Olympic sized pools. My generation a mature student was your mam learning Spanish. My generation never had the ambition your generation has.

If it wasn’t bate out of us in schools it was crushed out of us by a society that was led by religious zealots, ruled by snobbery, and crippled by taxes and interest rates that your generation will never see the like of, and an inherent understanding that we were never good enough.

Look at Hollywood today. Paddies Ruling the Red Carpet. My generation Hollywood Paddies were the drunken cop, the pregnant mother of 12, or the crooked judge in the casting calls. Look at you? What global reception would Horse Outside have gotten in 1988? Naw’ mind local ffs. Peas or Beans was our lot. If you’d have asked me what an espresso was back then, I probably would has said its something my Nanna uses to clean her windows.

There was a time too, when my generation couldn’t afford a house, or have children. Do you really think corruption, jobs for the boys, banks robbery and secrecy is unique to your generation? What is unique is that your generation now get to complain about it on the telly.

I don’t begrudge you. I celebrate what your generation has added to my life. But I am the better for mine and vice versa. I saw The Clash. I was at the very first Sweat dance. I went to the US with a false passport and worked as a lifeguard in the American Coast Guard. Cork done the double.

My generation know how to write a letter, get a week out of a chicken, and what to do in a power cut. Your generation will most likely, never witness ten Irish Men starve themselves to death, or a Stardust, or another Ann Lovett.

So grow the fuck up
Repeal the 8th
Wrap yer plastic wrapper around that.
And shur’up about everything else.

Frilly Keane’s column will appear here every Friday. Follow Frilly on Twitter: @frillykeane

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287 thoughts on “My Generation. Too.

      1. Macconnait

        Good place to go if your a mortician. Business is booming with a potential for explosive growth.

    1. Neilo

      Like the sentiment but the delivery system is a bit too Limmyesque for me. Congrats on scoring the gig though, Frilly.

        1. Frilly Keane

          Lads asked me in

          And ye know me
          I was reared right
          With manners n’ everything so I said fair’nuff

          Johnny Bhoy gave me the run of the gaff
          No Rules One Restriction. Work Count.
          Broke that already, but I’m hoping to balance is out accumulatively over the next while.

          And there’s me holiday leave to sort out

          1. J

            And the photo , Frilly? Now that you are a member of the BS elite, perhaps you could entertain us with a column on those “other” members. Dish the dirt. Stir the pot .

          2. Frilly Keane

            Lads are commissioning a full xpose type photoshoot

            oh they’re going all out
            even getting me teeth whitened
            I said I got a new toothbrush at Christmas
            But they said No
            We’re doing this right Frill
            D2 treatment all the way
            Nothings too much

            Open to suggestions, Joint Ventures, even Interviewees if they’re willing.

      1. J

        Penance for Dan, votes for Annemarie, self -glorification for Mercille and a new set of gnashers for Frilly.

  1. BillyTwelveTrees

    Ah “Corporal Punishment” I remember it well.

    I can see the maths teacher calling me to the front of the class and then asking me a question, and before I answered, he gave me a punch in the gut that would make Muhammad Ali proud, not to mention the numerous dusters and chairs that were thrown by other teachers…

    Ah the memories…

    1. Rowsdower

      I had a primary school teacher who still liked to throw a surprise fist at you if he was in a mood, must have had him in 97/98.

      When was corporal punishment outlawed?

      1. Caroline

        It was 1982. What that meant when I was in primary school in the mid-80s was the teacher had to call your ma when she hit you. I threw a bottle of ink over the b*tch when I was 5, got the beating back, she was SOL because we had no la-di-da phone – what an administrative nightmare!

        1. Anne

          same as myself… mid 80s.
          I recall in primary at about 6 or 7 having to stand with your back to the class at the top of the class, with your arms up.. until the teacher said you were done. You’d be standing with your arms up for about an hour. Got ‘lines’ too. 100 or 200 times of writing out a sentence -“I must be a good girl..” etc.
          Had a nun too with a nice big ring on her finger, who liked to dig it into your head for no particular reason.. no phone calls needed for that, it was just nudged into the back of your skull by accident. They had other forms of humiliation too.. having all the dunces sitting in one corner of the classroom.

          1. Fergus the magic postman

            I was in school in the mid 80s also. We were taught by the christian brothers, some of whom were more evil than others.
            They had the specially made strap for slapping. It had a handle on it & everything.
            Some brothers made us kneel for punishment.
            We got the lines as well. Essays too, 10 pages, no paragraphs or margins.

            As far as education, and punishments in school are concerned, I think we have advanced as a nation.
            We have not advanced much as far as corruption/ blatant naughty business by our governments at the expense of the masses is concerned.

            In the 80s I remember FGs horrendous shoe tax, which included childrens shoes, because they didn’t want women with small feet to get away with paying the tax. They haven’t changed much in fairness, & will try to generate dosh from anywhere/ anyone as long as it’s not the rich, or themselves.

          2. Fergus the magic postman

            You’re right. It was the attempt to get it introduced that saw the collapse of the then FG/ labour Coalition.
            They tried to introduce it though. The fact they didn’t get away with it doesn’t redeem the party, and they FG haven’t changed much at all, so my point stands. The biggest change since then with FG is the fact that the then leader Fitzgerald was slightly less hateful than today’s leader Kenny.

  2. MoyestWithExcitement

    So, young people today shouldn’t complain because people in the past had it worse? Is that really the whole point there?

    1. Nej

      Seems to be the case.

      Rather than addressing the concerns brought to the table, and their implication for the future of Ireland, lets all start a male genital measuring competition to see who had it worse.

      You do not need a “divide and conquer” approach in Ireland, since the population divides itself up naturally, just in case you could have some kind of unification and consistent end goal.

      1. MoyestWithExcitement

        “You do not need a “divide and conquer” approach in Ireland, since the population divides itself up naturally, just in case you could have some kind of unification and consistent end goal.”

        +10. We really are still a conservative society. So many people think they’re the centre of the universe. So many arguments in this country can be boiled down to ‘No fair. Waaah.’ Blindboy told a story about how hard this generation has it and I think that just dented a lot of people’s egos. ‘No fair, WE’RE the special generation.’

        1. Mike

          absolutely sums it up. this article is a load of badly written bullsh1t, a misery-comparing rant that on the whole misses the point

        2. B Bop

          This…as much as I admired Frilly’s article & it’s shameful truth…Moyest here summarises this nation’s overwhelming whinging & BLAMING.
          It’s a superb country- a world beater when we want to be – on so many levels…and every nation has had it’s foibles, religious madness, wars, tragedies…we just maintain the incessant whinging!

    2. Disasta

      I think what people from one generation fail to realise is that they looked like the young generation they moan about to the generation before them.

      Things are getting better no doubt but things have been getting better for a hundred years. So I’m pretty sure everyone in between can moan about that last generation.

      Good read though all the same. Enlighten me on a few things.

      1. Nigel

        What an arbitrary and asinine condition to place on complaints about the here and now which tend to be more urgent and pressing than those of the past.

      2. MoyestWithExcitement

        I’d really like to know where it’s been made out that this is the first generation to have it bad.

        1. rotide

          It’s implied in Blindboys rant. He says “my generation” and compares his generation to previous generations and illustrates how bad they have it by comparison.

          Every generation has had harships to bear. It’s not a contest.

          1. MoyestWithExcitement

            He says ‘my generation’ because it’s ‘his generation’ and the conversation was about the state of Ireland now, today. You took that inference all on your own. Saying ‘I’m in a state’ does not mean ‘I deserve more attention than you.’

          2. LW

            In fact he draws parallels with previous generations and their problems. He has a bit about people he knows seeing the similarities between themselves and the generation of the rising. The sentiment here seems to be that nobody should ever point out problems, because things were also bad in the past.

  3. Mark

    Blindboy still rattling cages one week later, especially among those who used to swear they’d never be the aul ones giving out about the youth. Repeal the 8th is unassailable all right but BB’s critique of neoliberalism is vital.

  4. Murtles

    Early 80’s, when I was a lad, I got hit by a drunk driver then got given out to by him, me ma and the local guard for being on the road. No fancy schmancy hospital either for stitches, a few drops of mercurochrome (the be all and end all of first aid liquids back in the day) and piece of a tea towel wrapped around it.

    Mercurochrome for cuts, calamine lotion for burns, no doctors needed….and sure we survived.

    1. Clampers Outside!

      “when I was a lad, I got hit by a drunk driver then got given out to by him”

      Snap! :)

      I was thrown twenty feet to the other side of the road and when I came to, I was looking up at the under carriage of a car my body had slid under, all I heard was….. “who’s gonna pay for my fupping motorbike [moped]”.

      He was breathalyzed and taken off the road a while later. Hah!

      1. Spud1

        I got my head split open in secondary school when the older lads were trying to fix a basketball post and it fell down on me… and I was given out for being there! No Health and Safety back then…
        Brought into A&E for a rake of stitches.

        These days I probably would have got thousands of €€ compo…

        Easier times indeed

    2. Slightly Bemused

      Ah, yes, Mercurochrome! Brings back memories. Decided to look it up, and loved the note on hazards: “Toxic, dangerous for the environment”

      Ah, yes, the art (as in the theory of chemotherapy for cancer) of taking something that can kill you hoping it will kill what ails you first. And generally being right!

    3. Frilly Keane

      The Magic Sponge
      D’ye remember

      The bucket with mucky water and a muckier sponge that was threaded with hairs and grass

      No matter what the injury or smack off what
      it was
      a rub of the sponge from the sideline
      got ya back on yer feet

  5. Quint

    Absolutely spot on. Blindboy was articulate on the Late Late but it really isn’t that bad for this generation.

    1. rotide

      It really isn’t. He claims that the current generation can’t afford to buy houses or have kids. This is patently not true, particularly the kids part or Ireland as a nation is in a lot more trouble than was previously thought.

      1. Anne

        I think Blindboy was spot on.

        http://www.independent.ie/life/unpaid-internships-zerohour-contracts-low-wages-are-irish-twentysomethings-cursed-34344672.html

        Just have a read of that.. That’s the story for many many 20 somethings.

        Personally speaking, I bought my first house when I was 24, around 2000.. I had to save for about a year for the deposit. The house was almost double the price 4 years later. With the 20% deposit rule, you’d be talking about saving 60K these days, instead of the 16k approx I saved up, plus rents have gone way up.
        Children are out of the question if you’re scraping by. Never mind being able to afford childcare.

        1. phil

          Anne I bought my house in 2000 too, we were very lucky , because the Government interfered with the housing market, they tightened or abolished section ‘something’ , buy to let landlords freaked and dumped their properties, the market then dipped, and on top of it all we didnt have to pay stamp duty that year….

        2. rotide

          There wasn’t a chance I could have afforded to buy a house at 24, even given the prices that they were going for at that time. I seem to remember you’re from Limerick? Not as easy as Dublin

          1. Anne

            As far as I recall, they weren’t that far off the prices in Dublin back then, because I was looking at buying in Kildare around the same time.
            The house was a decent enough 3 bed semi, for 160k. 300k 4 years later.
            10% deposit was 16k.. If you were working,(there was no slave labour back then – i.e; jobridge) earning any bit of a half decent wage you’d had a shot of saving that.

            Having to save 60k for the same house is just not doable for most people these days, (given the rent increases also).

            You can see the writing on the wall unless they start building social housing -thousands of homeless old folks on the state pension, who can’t afford rent and could never afford to buy.

            Section 23 I think Phil.. It was really ‘interfering in the market’ having that in the first place. The whole market is rigged from start to finish.
            I recall getting a 4K grant back then too… for a new house/first time buyer.

            It”s much harder these days.. your wan mentions about the older colleague in that piece in the Independent being able to buy a red brick georgian at her age.

  6. DCG

    You’d be the mature student now, not blindboy or the like, what it was back in ‘your day’ doesn’t really make any difference to you as you weren’t old enough then? Other than that, interesting read ol’ timer.

  7. Wayne Carr

    Thanks, the older generation, for the 8th amendment, the loss of our economic sovereignty, and the crippling debt.

    Thanks for making everything so easy for us. We are indebted to you forever… truly.

    1. MoyestWithExcitement

      +1 It’s amazing. Really. Every single generation says tells the one behind it that they’re lucky as if they’re the first ever. People are ridiculous.

      1. george

        More commonly it is the other way round. The older generation tells the younger generation they have it easy.

        Research by the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggests that young people today will be the first generation to be poorer than their parents.

  8. BMC

    I think that’s missing the point a little bit. He never accused ‘your’ generation of having it easy. Just because other generations also had it tough doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be striving for the absolute best that we can have.

    There are poo things happening and he is trying to raise awareness about them, simple as. As you said yourself “My generation never had the ambition your generation has.” He has the ambition to try and do something about it.

    This is not to take away from the hardship you and your generation suffered in any way. Getting a beating in school is horrific and unfortunately we haven’t moved on much from getting the boat to England (repeal the 8th please), but to suggest he should shut up complaining isn’t right. We should all do everything we can to move forward.

    P.S. I’m also sorry you’re from Cork. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

  9. Mikeyfex

    How do things improve, Frilly? By people saying that what they have isn’t good enough. It’s always been thus. That said, I enjoyed the read and overall sentiment did give me a smirk.

  10. Medium Sized C

    I’m conflicted.

    On one hand, frilly has a regular column.
    On the other hand, frilly has a regular column.

    Also, Stardust? Something like that could happen any time. Remember the love parade in 2010?

    1. Frilly Keane

      I appreciate that risk is always there. Even more so now that I’m a parent meself.
      But, anyone who remembers that night, the following morning, even the weeks after
      I do
      Vividly
      Because I was in Con that night, my mother who used to work nights then, got the news from her job and had an ambulance sent around to bring me home. I was morta, mean and belligerent at the time. The days later I was heartbroken. It has stayed with me since.

      But anyway, Anyone who remembers that February, will also tell you that the blame was being attempted at the victims and the patrons that night for some time after the disaster. There was a fight. … Lads had climbed in the windows so they were locked …. Friends inside were opening the fire escapes to let their pals in so they had to be locked …

      That would never happen again.

      1. Medium Sized C

        You’re still not saying anything that sounds remotely far fetched there and as Caroline says above, victim blaming is still all the rage today.

      2. MoyestWithExcitement

        “That would never happen again.”

        Weren’t the kids in Berkley blamed by US media for being drunk?

        1. rotide

          Initially there was a lot of questions asked since noone knew anything about what went on. That’s not ‘victim blaming’, thats ‘trying to get to the bottom of things’

          It’s also the USA, not Ireland.

  11. mauriac

    now that’s a rant.raises an interesting point though : why don’t people vomit while traveling anymore ?

  12. madouveh on the dole

    Great response there. A bunch of bitter twits from the 80’s would rather deride the valid points he has raised about the prospects (or lack thereof) facing young people in Ireland, instead of offering a creative and articulate response on what could be done to improve things for future generations.

    I live abroad because all my best friends have moved away and i wasnt willing to pay extortionate rent to live in a sh1t apartment in dublin.

    Enjoy your victim complex, old people.

  13. Jaymbo

    A sad old man sits in a pile of sh*t.
    He looks over to see a younger man in a fresher pile of sh*t but just as sad.
    The old man shouts at the younger man, “You don’t know how good you have it!”

  14. Clampers Outside!

    I like it Frilly. You sent me head off on one…. Summer holidays as a teen were either in Donegal because Ma and Pa Clampers couldn’t afford forden holidays for the eight of us, or they were spent working on the uncles farm. I enjoyed both in fairness. I saw Def Leppard in Leisureland Galway before they hit big time, served Rutger Hauer a pint of black in Tig Neachtains, Galway and served Oliver Reed a brandy in McPeaks, Salthill. Fell head over heals for more than one Spanish student over the summers and Americans and Canadians over for the International Irish Dancing in ’84, ’85 and ’86(?). I repeated in ’89, does that mean I’m posh? :) Good times!

    G’wan Frilly ! :)

    1. rory

      They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
      They may not mean to, but they do.
      They fill you with the faults they had
      And add some extra, just for you.

      But they were fucked up in their turn
      By fools in old-style hats and coats,
      Who half the time were soppy-stern
      And half at one another’s throats.

      Man hands on misery to man.
      It deepens like a coastal shelf.
      Get out as early as you can,
      And don’t have any kids yourself.

  15. Medium Sized C

    I kind of feel like what frilly is saying is that the repeal of the 8th ammendment is the only bit of progress that is acceptable to her at this juncture.
    Like “repeal the 8th and that’s it, we are done. No more progress necessary.”

    Like its somehow right that being able to afford to have a secure home, raise children and actively participate in the raising of said children is an opportunity available only to the very wealthy.
    Incidentally, a lot of the issues Blindboy Boatclub talks about have an affect on people of Frillys age too.

    I mean the sentiment and its echo in the comment section…..it just speaks to a complete lack of basic feckin empathy.

    We should aspire to make life better for people on a continuous basis, not begrudge people now the progress that has been made and certainly not belittle the desire for more progress.

    1. MoyestWithExcitement

      Only yesterday people here were talking about how sorry they felt for Paddy Manning, that he must be motivated by jealousy. He thinks that if he had it hard growing up as a gay man, gay people today should too. And then this gets published.

    2. Nice Jung Man

      hello medium sized c

      I think Frilly is trying to place the progress on social issues in recent years into some kind of context

      I didn’t feel he/she was having a go at the blindboy generation but more so, saying ‘a lot done, more to do’

  16. YA

    “I don’t begrudge you.” – Eh, you obviously do?

    Blindboy, or anyone else, saying things are tough for young people now, isn’t an attempt to take away from the fact that your generation suffered massively. It’s possible for multiple generations to have a poo time and live in a poo society. It’s not a competition.

  17. MoyestWithExcitement

    “There is a great tendency among the children of today to rebel against restraint, not only that placed upon them by the will of the parent, but against any restraint or limitation of what they consider their rights..This fact has filled well minded people with great apprehensions for the people.”
    Rev Henry Hussman, The Authority of Parents, *1906*
    https://xkcd.com/1227/

  18. Eoin

    Great commentary there. I’d completely forgotten how I used to get beaten with a wooden cane in school, even when innocent. A painful memory, but important not to forget. And while I’m sort of pro-church, lets never forget the hideous overbearing influence of the Catholic church and it’s bible bashing, God fearing, demon priests back then.
    I guess the lessening of their influence over Irish society is one thing the youth of today don’t have to worry so much about.

  19. EmigRant

    I remember my day we were all in the trenches in Flanders fighting the Jerrys. If the mustard gas didn’t get you the flu did, oh and we left as heroes, came home villains.

    We could write about the hardship of every bloody generation. The point is that as humans and a society we should be evolving every generation should have it better than the last or that wouldn’t be any progress. We shouldn’t be picking holes in what he said but asking the questions about why generations that suffered as much as they did during 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, finally found success and let it all fall apart so that another generation would suffer again. We’re not here to make the world better for ourselves but for the next generation (and that stands for everyone). So this intergenerational misery warfare should stop and start talking about how we don’t get ourselves into this mess again.

    So until you’ve something positive to say close your mouth and keep pulling the ladder up after you.

  20. Formerly known as @ireland.com

    This nails it:
    If it wasn’t bate out of us in schools it was crushed out of us by a society that was led by religious zealots, ruled by snobbery, and crippled by taxes and interest rates that your generation will never see the like of, and an inherent understanding that we were never good enough.

    Good work, Frilly.

    Here’s one (a serious one) I hope the younger generation doesn’t have:
    Wondering if your classmate who committed suicide in his 40’s, did it because he was abused by your local priest who has since been convicted of a paedophile offense, but who got a suspended sentence.

    1. aidan

      “My generation know how to write a letter, get a week out of a chicken, and what to do in a power cut. Your generation will most likely, never witness ten Irish Men starve themselves to death, or a Stardust, or another Ann Lovett.”

      And we should wear that as a badge of shame? I have to say i think this article is downright ridiculous. It’s like begrudgery of who has it worse. I think the main source of discontent from people of ‘our’ generation is that we see our country sold down the river by a generation out of touch. Whilst we neither had an entreprenurial spirit beaten out of us nor drummed into the majority of young Irish people who are taking risks to set up companies are doing so as a result of the last 15 years. It’s not because of the education systems that this is happening because I can tell you that growing up in the 90’s and early 00’s the main message from the education system was, “lad’s, go to college. You’ll get jobs for life. Then you’ll get on the property ladder”. While you might have been educated to emigrate we were taught the opposite lie. But lied to none the less. And the end result was the same, we emigrated. Or drank. And committed suicide in high numbers.

      Begrudgery, the mainstay of Irish life, even when it’s arguing over who had it worse. I think the person who needs to grow up is the author. If it’s an attempt at levity or satire it falls quite wide of the mark.

      1. Nigel

        Yeah, this represents a weirdly poisonous type of nostalgia. Nothing wrong with remembering the past, but if the purpose is to weaponise it by throwing it in the faces of the current generation as they try to make sense of the world as it is, then it’s repulsive. You would include a lot of what Frilly describes in an account of how the we got to be the way we are. To snarl it at people for not appreciating it enough is just bullying.

  21. Alex Francis

    Yes Blindboy, know your place as was said unto Frilly Keane’ generation he will now say to ye. Perpetuating the old nonsense. Divide, split, put down, mock. There will never be change with that attitude.
    Love the dig about the hidden identity with a ‘plastic wrapper’… says the anonymous ‘Frilly Keane’.
    We are peers Frilly. I’m a generation older than Blindboy but I’m with him, not with your ‘doesn’t know he’s born’ garbage.

  22. ahjayzis

    Loving the more columnage BS, I love a good column.

    Frilly’s right, my parents had it ROUGH as hell. Genuinely broker than I’ll ever be. The arguments that I hear over here about this generation being the first in a while to have it worse than their parents don’t work in Ireland.

    But the generation before them had it harder, and had it harder before that. I mean every parent brings up their kids to expect better from life than what they’ve had – and the problem now is people my age grew up in an age of absolute plenty, the disappointment with dealing with employment and income insecurity for the first time is a massive shock to the system.

    As part of Broadsheet’s revamp I’ll be autopsying my Saturday nights at length every Sunday evening in the form of a paranoid, fear-ridden rant starting the 31st Jan when I get paid and am less broke.

    I’ve builders (#heya) in at the mo putting in the sash window for to hang me legs out while I pensively ask rhetorical questions about ridin’ and metaphorising kebab shop drawwwma

  23. Ahoyhoy

    Funny that his entire column was moaning about how bad his generation had it and the core of the column was that the younger generation shouldn’t be moaning about how bad they have it.
    And if you want to play that game, I’m sure the generation before Frilly’s would have plenty to say on how bad they had it compared to their kids. And I don’t doubt a 6 year Sudanese kid would not be impressed at how bad any of the above have or had it.

    This generation has plenty of things that annoy me. Talking in large generalities, I find them oversensitive & passive-agressive. They overreact and they’ve got a real sense of entitlement about lots of things that I had to battle for.
    But then, I haven’t had to deal with their problems either. I don’t have to grow up in a generation that will be paying off a debt handed down from corrupt and incompetent governments for a long long time. I don’t have to deal with the non-paying internships and a lack of housing options. I don’t have to be part of a generation that can’t afford child care, that has to try and deal with record levels of economic inequality and homelessness and the selling off of national resources. That has deal with the mess that is the European Union and an ever-growing globalized economy.

    Given all that, I don’t find it very hard to be, for all their moaning and entitlement, sympathetic to Blindbot’s generation. Frilly’s entitled to take issue with them and all their faults. But that attitude of “we had it worse so shur’up” is, in my opinion, pure shite. And does nothing to make things better for either generation. (And write normally FFS. If you want your accent to come across in this, do a youtube video. One of the younger generation can show you how).

  24. Frilly Keane

    Lemme make this clear

    I’m not suggesting to this buck that we had it harder and they have it easier

    But it needs saying that he now gets to go on the telly, YouTube, FaceBook and all the other feeds for followers for himself and Stand Up for Himself

    He gets to Stand Up for himself
    We NEVER had that
    NEVER

    1. Ahoyhoy

      If that’s what you mean to say, fair enough. But it definitely did not come across that way to me.
      It’s atrocious that your generation didn’t get to stand up for themselves the way this one did. And I hope they never take it for granted. But how does “So grow the fuck up. Repeal the 8th. Wrap yer plastic wrapper around that. And shur’up about everything else” make that point in any way?

      1. Frilly Keane

        Sur isn’t he patronising us?
        with his phony accent and plastic bags
        Or is he mocking us?

        I don’t know.
        I’ve never bothered to find out

    2. Jaymbo

      So what is your point? Are you angry because he gets to voice his outrage? I really don’t understand. Surely you should be supporting him

      1. sirtuffyknight

        +1 – this whole article just reeks of bitterness, why are you angry with people from younger generations for not experiencing the same hardships instead of the institutions that inflicted them upon you? And why would you be opposed to them standing up for themselves when you couldn’t?

        1. MoyestWithExcitement

          Plus the piece is an incoherent mess of a missive but 130, and counting, replies means BS are happy.

    3. Slightly Bemused

      Agreed.

      Although I must admit, I did once get on the telly, as part of the audience on Youngline. I still have the mug :)

    4. Ian

      Did you even try to have it? Did you bang on RTE’s door demanding a segment on the “Angelus” or what ever black & white tripe was on TV at that stage? If it was so bad (& I’m not saying it wasn’t) what did you do to change it? You moan about religious zealots, what did you do about them? It was my generation that pushed them out! your generation let them play with kids.

      “Look at Hollywood today. Paddies Ruling the Red Carpet. My generation Hollywood Paddies were the drunken cop, the pregnant mother of 12, or the crooked judge in the casting calls. Look at you? What global reception would Horse Outside have gotten in 1988? Naw’ mind local ffs.” Peter O’Toole &U2 debunks that particular statement

      Get over yourself and your “hard knock life” negativity impedes change, why not use your column for positivity. Maybe come up with solutions for the plight your generation has left mine in.

    1. MoyestWithExcitement

      Apparently it’s that young people who have it tough get to go on TV or the internet to complain about it…..(me neither)

  25. Slightly Bemused

    I must admit I enjoyed this, and also Blindboy’s piece. Both are valid, and what is good to see is the passion. As mentioned by Frilly, it was bate out of us (I am the same generation). It is not out of this generation, and I really enjoy seeing my nephews and nieces standing up for themselves, and the opportunities they have which were not available in my time.

    But they don’t have it easy either. Apart from Bilndboy’s valid points, the younger generation face even bigger threats and problems. The world is becoming more scary than it ever was, and that’s int he ‘civilised’ parts. As the reports yesterday show even private information is not safe, and innocent pictures are being stolen to peddle porn.

    The good thing about a good rant, I always feel, is that you tend to get all the valid points out. Unfortunately in my job, and in part a legacy of the timidness bate into us, I find myself writing the rant, but then sleeping on it and editing it the next day: toning down the vitriol and bile, and eventually removing the passion.

    To paraphrase Baz Luhrmann: If I could offer you only one tip for the future, passion would be it.

  26. Parp

    I’m not even going to bother going into the majority of the nonsense in this, but if you could please stop using the pejorative term ‘Paddy’, that would be nice. Thanks.

    1. Medium Sized C

      I love the perjorative term Paddy.
      I encourage its continued use.

      I mean in the vast pantheon of perjoratives used for ethnic and cultural classes, given some of the absolute horrors that the words come from, calling a group of people “micks” or “paddies” because the names are widespread among their culture is about as innocuous as you can get.

    2. rotide

      Kindly outline how the term offends you. If you even mention london in the 1950s you will be ignored.

  27. RT

    Typical begrudging drivel, with more than a hint of “Little Irelander” about it. Is the standard of columns that BS is proposing to run weekly now?

    As someone born in 1984, this is just a meandering rant about how my generation (and the one coming up to adulthood now) are all supposedly molly-coddled, that we don’t know the true meaning of misery and hardship, that our generation’s challenges are somehow not as relevant or as tough as theirs because our main challenges are economic in the main and as a result we should stop using our many avenues and outlets to complain because of Frilly’s generations hardships.

    On a side note, It’s likely Frilly got onto the property ladder at an age only my generation can dream about, and most of us will probably be forking out high rents to Frilly’s mates and contemporaries for the foreseeable – something he conveniently omits.

    The ultimate irony is that Frilly was probably told to “shur’up about everything else” when he was my age – pot kettle black much?

    1. rotide

      You were born in 1984, Your generation is as much to blame for the state of the country as the one before it. There was no shortage of early and mid-twenties throwing money at properties in 2007

        1. RT

          Plenty of folks born in 1984 (sorry to single out a single year, but it’s most relevant to me) would have been in college from 2003 to about 2006-08, so no, most of us were not in a position to “throw money at property” – far from it – as we started graduate level jobs or undertook further education.

          That said I also realise that some folks born in 1984 may not have had the privilege of having gone to college and may have been able to buy during the peak years (depending on their personal circumstances after reaching adulthood). I do think these would be the minority though.

          Only a (slowly growing) minority of my friends, acquaintances and family in my age bracket now own property, and at that have only bought within the last 3 years. They are still in the minority compared those who rent (big majority) and those still living at home with the folks.

          Again I only speak about my contemporaries, I’m well aware that those younger than me in the same generation (including my 2 siblings) faced much worse prospects than I did upon entering adulthood

          1. rotide

            I’m certainly not suggesting that everyone bought a house in their early 20s at that time. From looking at my own peers and contemporaries, None of us bought houses untill our thirties but i suspect that’s not the average either. Although it does seem to be for me since that’s what I saw around me. And now thats the same for you. I suspect it will be the same for millenials.

            So yeah, Blindboy is whinging.

          2. Nigel

            Jesus you’ve grown so accustomed to the property market be something based on a design drawn in crayon on the wall of a padded cell in a lunatic asylum you don’t even notice it anymore. You actually think it’s equivalent to anything from the eighties or nineties? You;re so desperate to shut other people up you’ll say anything?

  28. Frilly Keane

    Correction for the board. So please take note.

    “You Don’t Know You’re Born”
    and the thread title
    “Think you have it Tough?”

    Are not my words. They are the hosts.

    My submission starts with” Oh Yeah.”
    From there on
    Its all mine.

    Title. My Generation.Too.

    1. Anne

      “Correction for the board. So please take note”

      You’d be more respectful if you said ‘Yo, b*tches’..

      Let me go see what’s yours then..

  29. ivor

    So do we have to invent the term “Moge” so people can claim they were the Most Oppressed Generation Ever, or could we maybe focus on the ways of changing current government policy? If the former, my vote goes to the generation who had to undergo human sacrifice in the bogs of Mayo.

    That was a vaguely entertaining rant but utterly useless in terms of raising awareness of current destructive policies that might be changed.

  30. Spaghetti Hoop

    Enjoyed that Frilly ;)
    And yes, every generation has its hardships and problems but a few decades ago you just couldn’t say nowt about it. The dogma of religion and politics in this country was frightening.

    One example: the heaviest batin’ I ever received in my convent (corporal punishment ban made no difference to the nuns) was when I composed a funny song about the school chaplain who was running his hands up girls’ skirts, taking photographs, flirting with the lookers and popping up at every school tour. After the batin’ I had to kneel in the principal’s office and say the rosary (full album version) and pray for the lord to cleanse me of my ‘dirty mind’. Good times!

    Now, everyone has a voice. Ireland is still growing up and we have many more ideals to strive for but we have progressed. Forget about the material stuff – it’s not as important as a fair and equal society who have opportunities and respect.

    1. Frilly Keane

      Now that’s my point
      Thank you Spag

      The Blind Boys of Limerick’s point is Financial/ or as you say, material

      Mine isn’t

      1. Medium Sized C

        I can’t agree with either of you here.
        His point isn’t “financial” its economic and it is all about equality of opportunity.

        Jesus like, kids can’t afford to rent a gaff much less aspire to own one.
        You can’t just dismiss these things and say he is complaining about money.

    2. pedeyw

      Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive, though. Financial inequality leads to social inequality.

  31. Anne

    Has she got a permanent slot now or is this just a once off?
    I think the readership will decline rapidly if it’s a regular thing..
    What’s this girl’s game plan?
    Does she want to get into politics?
    Why are broadsheet pandering to this wan?
    Why should I follow this tosspot on twitter?
    Why, why why.. answer me questions.. also she better be media savvy.

    Just messing.. I’ll have a read now in a min.

  32. ollie

    There was a lady complaining on Vincent Brown the other night that she couldn’t afford to rent a house in Malahide! A swift kick in the bottom would sort out her problems

  33. Anne

    Just noticed this –
    “Frilly Keane’s column will appear here every Friday.”

    Wonderful.
    I suppose if you bitch n moan enough about not getting any attention, you’ll get what you want.

    But all the best with it.. I hope your columns won’t be all ME, ME, ME.. and have some substance to them otherwise people will bore of you very quickly.
    I hope you’re ‘media savvy’ when you’re getting lashed outtouvvit by people too.
    I won’t be inclined to defend you one bit either, considering some recent carry on from you.

  34. Nially

    This is pretty terrible. I mean, even aside from the fact that it makes Dan Boyle’s ‘writing’ look coherent, the message is pretty gross.

    “My generation had problems too, so shut up about current problems”

    Like, do you think the reason we’ll “never have another Ann Lovett again” (questionable claim, but whatever) is because people of your generation sat down and took what was given to them? Or did it come from people less whinging and self-centred than Frilly actually doing something about it? (Even if they mightn’t have gotten to do it from a TV screen)

  35. shane

    ollocks. That’s the kind of incoherent ranting usually reserved for a clamper.

    It’s sh¡t to be a peasant in this country, it was always sh¡t to be a peasant in this country, the question is: What are you prepared to do about it?

    Frilly says fupp all, because in his father’s day the whole family has to share the one shoe, and that was only on a Sunday because they were afraid they’d wear it out, whereas he and he brother had a pair of shoes between them.
    Young people today have two pairs of shoes so they should be happy with their lot.
    Who the fuçk voted for the 8th amendment if not Frilly’s fupping generation?
    Who took three attempts to bring in divorce (and then only barely)?
    Does he not remember how fupping angry people were about the things that needed changing then?

    Change is something that requires people to take action. Anger is the energy that drives change. Frilly’s anger is against people seeking change, well fupp him. What was left unfinished is what’s important, and there was fupp all done by Frilly’s generation to improve things. Any improvement that did happen was a function of external factors.

    Cheap airfares rather than cattle class ferries? : International corporate financing made this happen, not Frilly

    The conceit of this piece is “I don’t begrudge you” Frilly does, Frilly thinks that a spotlight on other people’s problems somehow diminishes the suffering that Frilly has stoically endured. So much so that he thinks that other people shouldn’t complain and be a passive fool like himself.

    I couldn’t give a toss about Blindboy’s economic illiteracy, the problems are real even if his analysis is bullpoo. But Blindboy has every right to complain, and rail, and take action against those problems: Assuming he does take action.

    Frilly is right, we don’t have an Ann Lovett, we have a Savita Halapannavar
    We don’t have 10 young men, IRA Prisioners, martyring themselves for a cause, we have so many so many young men killing themselves we don’t even fupping count them anymore: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/coroner-attacks-moves-to-hide-suicide-278648.html
    and Stardust? Ye çunts didn’t even charge anyone for manslaughter

    You’d swear than no one from Blindboy’s generation got a punch from a teacher or had one stick their finger up your bum. What kind of argument is that: “Yes you were abused, molested, abused. But I got it more so”?

    The sentiment of this piece could be summed up with: “Don’t get cranky because someone had it worse, it could have been you.” That’s a recipe for stasis, and kicking problems down the road. The same auld poo that means we deal with the same fupping problems generation after generation, meanwhile collaborators, apologists, and useful fools like Frilly bitch about other people getting to give out on television (As if Sinead O’Connor, Bob Geldof, Fupping Bono, Christy Moore, Dermot Moran didn’t get to bitch on the Late Late Show in their time). Frilly didn’t but that’s because he’d nothing to say until he thought that thanks to someone else’s complaints, his misery was being fupping diminished.

    Frisky is worse than the badly dressed, useless, incompetent, unprofessional, lazy, selfish civil servant class that know they can keep fupping up this country generation after generation because anyone who is likely to do anything about it will fupp off to London first. Frilly’s worse because the naughty people in charge are at least self-interested, they know they’ve the gravy of the pension to look forward to, and that they’d “have to rape someone to get fired” as one said to a friend of mine. Frilly’s worse because he isn’t even part of that circle jerk. Frilly makes their argument for him, and goes home to give thanks to the nice gombeen man that granted him the gift of central heating.

    I grew up in a country where eggs and chips was a dinner, where I was frightened that the bank was going to repossess our house. Where the sheets were damp because there wasn’t the money to heat the house properly. Where the dog was sent to the pound because feeding him was a problem. Where I used to not tell my mom about school trips because I couldn’t face being a bigger financial burden on her. Where my cousins would take me in for the summer so that a burden was taken off my family.

    It is not wrong to want a world that is different from that for my children, if I ever have any. It is wrong to deny others the right to want to fix the problems that you never bothered with.

    1. MoyestWithExcitement

      I’m not really into men but you can have me. This bit in particular is just beautiful “Change is something that requires people to take action. Anger is the energy that drives change. Frilly’s anger is against people seeking change, well fuçk him.”

    2. Medium Sized C

      You are taking the whole thing way to literally.
      I wonder if people appreciated nuance in Frilly’s day…..

      Also, frilly is a she.

      1. shane

        Frilly is a pseudonym. There’s no nuance here, there could be a satire lurking beneath a thick veil of Poe’s law but the impression given (and from the comments broadly recieved) was that Frilly is speaking from the heart.

        On top of lacking the courage to speak in their own name, you’re suggesting that they also lack the courage to say what they mean.

      2. Nigel

        No, I expect in Frilly’s day they also had the technique of saying horrible things to people, but really sarcastically so it seemed like it might be funny, but instead of taking the sting out of it, it made it even crueler and more savage a put-down.

  36. rotide

    That was a lot more entertaining than most of the regular columns and the best part, not a hint of an agenda (well apart from the 8th but sure don’t we all want that).

    The message i got from it is that every generation has things to complain about and Blindboy shouldn’t act as if his is the first to have problems.

    Good work Frilly, a lot in there i didn’t agree with but a lot that I did. Look forward to more.

    1. Nigel

      IT DOESN’T MATTER HE’S NOT THE FIRST. Jesus, is this kind of banal self-blinding insight passing as the wisdom of the ages common as a generation gets older, just as you get into right-on liberal politics in their twenties? The problems of the current generation are more important, because they are current and real and now. It’s like a truism. Because it’s true.

  37. Custo

    I’m in between both generations and can see that they’re both as bad as each other, it’s just that nowadays the tap water sandwiches are made with artisan bread.

  38. nellyb

    Since Frilly didn’t bother with any reasoning, he must have chosen Charlie Hebdo/ Kevin Myers / Ian O’Doherty style, to show that free speech is live and kicking. Which is great and we need it and the piece is entertaining.
    Looking forward to the next one. G’wan Frilly, tell us who you’ll leave with the baby to hold!

  39. Gav D

    Incoherent. If that was submitted as an essay in secondary school it’d be lucky to scrape a C-.

    Fair play to anyone who got through it without cringing.

    1. Sibling of Daedalus

      You could say the same about Ulysses.

      The Leaving Cert is not the be-and-end all of literary merit.

      Don’t be so 1980s.

      1. Gav D

        Ah, take a step back now. Comparing this to Ulysses is a bit of a stretch, no? Maybe comparable to the Ulysses 2031 cartoon (which for the record, made more narrative sense).

        1. Sibling of Daedalus

          The point is the same, evaluating something’s literary merit by considering the grade it would have got in a Leaving Cert essay is daft.

          *confession* I briefly attended one of Frilly’s ‘posh grind schools’. Consequently I know the marking criteria for those essays. Scary.

    1. rotide

      Saw the discussion on r eddit and it’s the same bullpoo there.

      We’re all aware that their generation has had it rough from the 60’s-80’s. But it’s the ones who were at the wheel in the 90’s up to now (part of their generation) who hasn’t made things any easier for us.

      I’d actually be genuinely interested to see statistics on how ireland is worse now. Sure there’s a housing crisis right now, but in the greater scheme of things that is temporary (we are talking about generations afterall). What’s the average wage vs the cost of living between now and 1970?

      1. Nigel

        Yeah, the big worry is they might not realise how bad we had it in our day. God the current generations are SO narcissistic and self-involved!

      2. Medium Sized C

        I’d imagine it would be the usual poo. Better in many ways, some bits worse off and some about the same. Feckin things, all being more complicated than any sort of binary comparison and all.

  40. jeremy kyle

    You think you’re generation had it bad? think about the kids growing up during the famine….

  41. Jerry

    Wow. Badly written ‘to be sure’ nonsense. I guess you get what you pay for – in this case garbled narrative-free dross from an anonymous poster.

    1. Medium Sized C

      As opposed to Jerry.
      The Jerry.
      Sure, doesn’t everyone know Jerry.

      I’d venture there are less Keanes than Jerrys.

  42. DubLoony

    Thanks for that Frilly, brings back memories!

    It wasn’t all hell.
    We made arrangements to meet people at a specific time & location, not a “like” on facebook.
    We went to gigs and enjoyed live music, not download and listen alone.
    No internet. We talked to people. We made idiots of ourselves but no photographic evidence of it haunts us.

    That said, I do think the 18-35s are being particularity screwd over right now.

  43. Nigel

    What’s p1ssed me off is that all your whinging and cribbing and finger pointing anti-neo liberal ranting is in the main, Financial.

    One thing the problems of a current generation have over a previous, is that current problems are by definition happening now, when it’s possible to do something about them. I do like that we’re reducing the chance of that by dismissing the complaints because you supposedly had it worse. That’s one feature each generation brings to the next: shut up, you. We’ve learned the benefits of not listening, instead comparing and contrasting and concluding: shut up, you. As a depressive, I have to say, that brings back fond memories. Shut up, you. What do you have to complain about?

  44. G&D

    My generation wont put up with what Frilly’s put up with
    My generation will vote to reduce income inequality
    My generation will strive to give social equality to all
    My generation wont almost vote a tv presenter like Gay Byrne president in a desperate bid to recapture the past

    My generation will have to put up with Frilly’s generation until ‘natural waste’ takes its toll

    1. rotide

      WHat sort of utter guff are you talking?

      Your generation voted with frillys generation for SSM. Your generation voted with Frillys generation to put the govt in power. When did Gay Byrne ‘almost’ get voted president?

  45. Djizandipus

    Like it was written for the sole purpose of taking a BS census of the perennially offended, the contrarians, and the ones with the ability to see things for what they are and not really give a toss.

  46. Whataboutery

    So a warmed over ‘You know you were a child of the 70s if…’ chain email constitutes a column these days.

  47. whatdafup

    great post but isn’t each generation supposed to want to have it better because we can always do better? your difficulties are true but so are ours. your problems are bigger to you because you are you. mine are bigger to me because they’re mine.

    the opportunity to complain on telly is the very point that will make this generation different. people can change things more quickly then ever before. it should be celebrated. the fight doesn’t have to be on the street

  48. Fardays

    I honestly could not understand a significant proportion of this piece…I can’t tell if the writer is absurdly bad at expressing themselves or using this type of language as a rhetorical device.

  49. Lilly

    Go Frilly! Jammy gig, I’m jealous. BS is high on the list of places I’d like to work. Keep ’em coming.

  50. some old queen

    Saying this generation is better/worst is a bit like asking if skinny trousers looked better on a fat person in the sixties or now. The boy, 30+, financially comfortable, shocked the nation by wearing a plastic bag over his head.

    No.

    In your own time RTE. Start with cancer. List every employee who was diagnosed with cancer who faced it without private health insurance?

    1. paul m

      definitely better in the 60s, the drugs were better, so the pink elephants on parade in those bet on flares were gas craic altogether.

      as an aside skinny jeans would probably look better on a fat person in their sixties than someone now. we’ll all be fat by then.

  51. Bingo

    Got home from work to find that the poxy heating is off.
    No answer from the Lord Of The Land. He’s probably munching on veal in his mansion as I type.
    Probably wont have heating fixed until Monday or Tuesday.

    WHY GOD WHY?

    Can I have a column?

    1. Sibling of Daedalus

      Keep going and if you dumb it down a bit you might have a chance at Ian Doherty’s slot in the Indo…

  52. Donjuan

    Surely blindboys comments were made to offset the we re all better off and the country is flying it rhetoric of Ivan Yates … At no stage did he suggest that the current generation is worse off than previous ones… He simply used his chance on the late late to say it. Why does the author of this piece think he was saying the current generation has it worse. I know dave the character that plays Blindboy well he s the youngest of 6 and his brothers and sisters are years older than him and all of them would have emigrated in the 80’s when he was a nipper so he knows well about the previous generations hardship. Crazy to use Blindboy as a way to get that rant in implying poo that he never said. Very tabloid stuff going on here.

    1. some old queen

      Totally. Blindboy was commenting to the government propaganda bullsh|t rather than previous generations. It doesn’t make a blind (pun) bit of difference who had it worst because this is now and that was then.

      It was shocking the way the media automatically flipped into emigration mode once the crash happened. A pressure value was released in order to maintain the status quo.

    2. rory

      Sounds about right.
      I’m wondering what is Broadsheet’s thinking for including this type of article here.

    3. inPisces

      The Late Late is a symbol of everything that is decadent and depraved about this cesspool. The fact a nonce like the rubber bandits guy uses that as a platform to exhibit his particular blend of misogynistic venom is a clear sign of his depraved, nihilistic psyche. No one is listening to some crap some celebrity wankstain says in the hallowed halls of Montrose. That’s so 1980/s baby

  53. Soft like

    ‘People try to put us down, talking about my generation just because we get around’ generational issues have been happening since the term was coined. We are all in the same boat getting fecked over by our lovely governments since the foundation of governments.

  54. Oisin

    A smashing rant and good insight into the previous generation’s woes – truly – but as a rep of Blindboy’s gen., I feel the need to defend. His comments were not untrue and also very insightful to the problems, fear and confusion among our generation, not something to be laughed and sneered at from someone who ‘had it tougher’.

    Can we not just accept we all have had our issues and perhaps more needs to be done for the youths when they are youths to help guide and involve em, aye?

    Also why have a dig at Horse Outside? Do not pretend you didn’t love that song when you heard it.

    1. inPisces

      I don’t think it is a dig at Blindboy Oisin but only Frilly can say that for sure.Rather the way it appears to me is
      Tl;dr
      We had it bad too but you guys expect more

  55. Lilly

    Ah now Frilly, I finally got a chance to read this, and sex before marriage was not unforgivable in the 80s. Are you mixing it up with the 50s?

    I feel sorry for this generation of young people being forced to rent overpriced kips forever. It’s incumbent on us all when we recognise dysfunction to call a halt to it, not to say fupp you I’ve paid my dues, and pass it on.

    1. inPisces

      So true. It’s an inter-generational issue. Once again Lilly is an isolated voice of reason in the wilderness of BS macho bullpoo commentary.

      1. Fergus the magic postman

        You are walking contradiction, but you know that right? Unless you can’t walk, which is fine, but it might explain the mental issues you’re exhibiting.

        1. inPisces

          No I’m not the contradiction Fergie love

          I’m not some bull poo liberal pretending to be all sensitive and touchy feely while simultaneously agreeing with my fellow ladyboys and excoriating anyone who presents a manifestly more informed and mature viewpoint.

          1. Fergus the magic postman

            You don’t know what you are, & judging by your multi accounts you don’t know who you are either.

          2. inPisces

            Why the insistence on policing how many accounts people have? Is that another part of the overwhelming urge to shoot down anyone with whom you disagree? For the record I have one account. I retired Saint Paul and I only set up new ones when the moderators block the old one

  56. ruairi

    wow, another “don’t complain, other people have/had it worse” rant. always enlightening, really addresses the issues. good work.

  57. inPisces

    Instead of shouting derogatory put downs at Frilly which sadly appears to be the stock in trade of the vast majority of wank stains frequenting this non entity bulletin board, why not take a moment to reflect on frilly’ contribution over the years to inspiring lively and even occasionally informed debate? Rather than pick a bone with every single nuance of every utterance, I, for one, doff my virtual hat to Frilly for having a go – by doing so he/she is already light years ahead of the whining, posturing nonces ( both male, female and transgender) who lurk here daily hurling nasty and barely literate epithets at those who have the audacity to posit any sort of viewpoints contrary to some pseudo liberal, barely out of nappies, student politics, repressed nonsense. You know who are pig-dogs, and I for one am going to hunt you all individually down and expose you for the baby blanket soiling, euroweenie bedwetters you each are.

    1. Nigel

      This is what a toilet flushing eternally in someone’s brain looks like. Horrible muck going round and round and round. Saints preserve us,

  58. Frilly Keane

    a few clarifications.
    Apologies first.
    I never expected this thread to become the runaway I now find myself part of. My activity on Broadsheet has historically shown I rarely contribute to threads beyond 100 replies. But on that note, a big thank you to all the contributors. Good Bad or Edited. Plus 1 to all

    Anyway. Let me confirm a few things by way doing a bit of a tidy up.
    I never intended to suggest that Blindbhoy & Co have it much easier than I did.

    What needs to be said, and I hope it doesn’t get lost now that we are approaching 300+ replies, is that we are all looking out on the same devastated barren, maybe hopeless, economic landscape that Blindbhoy discussed on the Late Late. (let me now tell ye I didn’t see it, nor did I read the previous thread here, however I did follow the clip held in it)

    This Landscape is shared with my generation too.

    However, our horizon is a lot closer.
    Our Retirement years are nearer, and like most of my generation, I have no idea what to expect nor do I have the years left to manage a reliable plan since the previous one is bolloxed, buying lotto tickets is about the height of it. Or marrying it.

    In the meantime, let me confirm
    I didn’t get my dream job either. Most of us didn’t
    Nor do I have the gold encrusted benchmarked for life pension. Do you?
    I paid childcare, over 850 yoyos a month. too. I wasn’t alone. But I was lucky. I found a place I was very happy with for my baba. And my family was absolutely and unfortunately decided by finance. too.

    Somewhere in the above there is also mention of the cost of accommodation, do we really want to talk about renting over priced kips?
    Kips? Seriously?
    If so, get ready for tales of meters being robbed, shared showers and toilets with holes in the walls, one bar heaters, mould, the smell of cabbage, and unregulated Landlords. AND NO NOTICE.

    We’re all facing the same sh1t lads. Only Blindbhoy’s have had a very different start to theirs. I called in a backdrop above. Call yere’s what ye like. Ours was VERY different.

    Sum’ting else, if ye don’t mind.
    In about a 4 weeks ‘ish
    We will all look down a ballot sheet.
    Note it lads.
    Because when my generation got our first shout at a General Election
    It never looked like the one we’ll have in our hands next month

    Finally. (says you)
    When I said “Shur’up” it was not intended to shut someone with an opinion up.
    I would never do that.
    It was a glib way of redirection to a bitta gorilla canvassing
    If it was read any different, then my advice is not to read anymore Frilly Friday Stuff

    Repeal the 8th
    Join hands lads
    Because this is something we can all share

    Is mise
    Frilly

    1. Fergus the magic postman

      So, as I see it, Blindboy wasn’t suggesting that his generation is having a worse time than yours or mine did.
      You are saying you didn’t mean to suggest that his generation is having it easier than yours did.

      Everybody wins!

    2. Lilly

      You know what I’d love to know, are those who have grown up in more progressive countries – let’s say one of the Scandinavian ones, surrounded by civic-minded people – living more fulfilling lives, achieving their potential? Or does life hobble us all no matter where we are. It seems those who reach 50 in Ireland without being shipwrecks are few and far between. Not that you’d know it from listening to Miriam on Sunday.

    3. Anne

      Just having a read there.. got to this “My activity on Broadsheet has historically shown I rarely contribute to threads beyond 100 replies.”

      Ah yeah, let me go back and check there.. or maybe not. No one gives a shyhe.

    4. Anne

      “When I said “Shur’up” it was not intended to shut someone with an opinion up.
      I would never do that.”

      Having to explain expressions and jokes and sarcasm….Welcome to Anne-Marie’s world but you’re medja savvy, so you’ll be grand hey..
      Why do I forsee a meltdown some Friday evening.. lol

      Please write about something informative too will you, please?
      Not these ‘Woman’s Way’ opinion pieces.

    5. d4n

      Problem with this type of article is it reads very much like ‘my generation had it bad, so yours should too’.

  59. London Irish

    “My generation know how to write a letter, get a week out of a chicken, and what to do in a power cut. Your generation will most likely, never witness ten Irish Men starve themselves to death, or a Stardust, or another Ann Lovett. So grow the fuck up.”

    As a forty-something adult, I regard this article as a pile of crap, and woefully embarrassing. As another poster said, so young people today shouldn’t complain and try to point out problems because people in the past had it worse? Bloody hell. What a load of bollox.

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