In 1981 Greece was (regrettably!) admitted as a member of the European Union, forty nine people died in the Stardust fire, President Pinochet was sworn in as the President of Chile, the first DeLorean car was produced in Northern Ireland, there were assassination attempts on Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, Bobby Sands became the first of ten IRA hunger strikers to die in the Maze Prison, Peter Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper) was jailed for life, John McEnroe launched his famous tirade “you cannot be serious” at the umpire in Wimbledon, Shergar won the Derby, Lady Diana married the Prince of Wales, France abolished the guillotine, Raiders of the Lost Ark pipped On Golden Pond as the highest grossing film and the Human League with Don’t you want me vied for the top spot in the charts with Queen’s and David Bowie’s Under Pressure.
Also in 1981, we would all have had rooms containing a television, record player, radio, torch, alarm clock, bookshelves (with books, newspapers and magazines), diary, address book, camera, cine camera, an egg-timer, a record collection, an atlas, photo album, newspapers, envelopes, letter paper and stamps, typewriter and many other devices. Now we have a single smart phone (and possibly a kindle) which has, would you believe, more computer power than all of NASA’s computer power in the 1980’s.
The other thing that was more common in 1981 was meeting up. Now with Facebook, twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat etc., meetings often take a back seat. This is hardly an excuse for failing to have a reunion for the last ten years but is sadly consistent with our track record of having only had three reunions in the last thirty five years. In any event, we will all soon be (at least) thirty five years out of school and we are proposing to arrange a reunion at The Dunraven Arms Hotel in Adare, Co. Limerick on Saturday, 13th February 2016. Sadly, we will be one man down at our thirty fifth reunion because of (as you all probably know) the premature death of Johnny (Sherlock) Holmes who died last year leaving two young sons behind.
We do hope as many people as possible attend because meeting is better than WhatsApp!
Please let us know if you will be attending by contacting either of us at the following email addresses:-
Walter Beatty – walter.beatty@vblaw.ie
Michael Cosgrave – michaelcosgrave@gmail.com