We were poor in 1980, but we were happy. No, wait a minute. We were poor and we were . . . extremely unhappy. Yes, that's it. We were miserable, in fact. It's all coming back now.
The State was sliding into bankruptcy. Except for Charlie Haughey, who had just become Taoiseach and was sliding out of it. But the national debt was no fault of PAYE workers, who had been bled white and were now on the verge of revolution: 700,000 took to the streets in January in the biggest demonstration of organised labour in the history of the State.
The mood was reflected in this newspaper's report of the marches. A statement from the "Irish Times Workers Council" assured comrade readers that union members had produced the paper only to ensure coverage of the protest. Solidarity was not just a union in Poland in 1980.
The married sector was the big winner in the February budget after the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to tax couples as one person. The State had more tax bands than boy bands at the time, and finance minister Michael O'Kennedy widened them all, with the result that you now had to earn £9,000 before you hit the 60 per cent top rate. There were 25 per cent increases in some social welfare payments.
Inflation was 13 per cent and rising. The price of a pint was up to a ridiculous 61p in some places. Money was tight, so the banks barely opened at all: they took an hour for lunch and closed at 3 p.m.
The minimum Dublin bus fare was now 18p and CIE was looking for another hike that would mean fares had quadrupled in five years. On the plus side, public transport was marginally more accessible than now - there were still some of those draughty old buses with open platforms you could jump on and off in slow-moving traffic. The traffic seemed slow-moving even then. It could take 10 minutes to get through Grafton Street.
All the indicators were bad. Unemployment rose by 30,000 in a year to break the six-figure barrier. Interest rates were 14 per cent and house prices falling. Garret FitzGerald came back from a trip to the US saying that, bad as we thought the situation was, it was even worse. The 1980s would see a "profoundly disturbing combination of external crises, involving energy shortages, economic instability and strategic imbalances," he predicted.
The Irish soccer team was embarking on another doomed attempt to qualify for the World Cup, undermined by energy shortages and strategic imbalances of its own.
But Ireland was making an impression in France: the front page of Le Monde carried a photograph of heavily-bearded, blanket-wearing republicans on the H-Blocks, as they began the first hunger strike. Starting out on the 27-hour journey home, Paris looked very glamorous through a steamed-up bus window.
But there were some glimpses of glamour. An Irish Times list of women to watch in the 1980s included "Jill" Bowler, a 27-yearold with her own travel company. Smart, beautiful and going places, Jill had "her own bijou mews cottage in Ballsbridge, with mirrored and sunken bathroom and a sports car to match". She was also one of a small group of brave people in Ireland pioneering the daily use of sunglasses.
Big things were being predicted as well for a band called U2, although some of us thought the singer had a bad hairstyle, even by the standards of the time.
Margaret Thatcher came to Dublin before Christmas, and the phrase "totality of relationships" was born. The Troubles dragged on, but Belfast was attracting shoppers from the South with cheaper prices and over-the-counter condom sales. The Virgin Megastore hadn't arrived yet to offer Dublin a contraceptive service; and on the site it now occupies, McBirney's department store was still hanging on grimly, advertising seasonal specials including "ladies' ankle-length bootees" for only £8.50.
John Lennon was murdered in December. It was the end of rock and roll for many. But we drowned our sorrows in 61p pints and dug in for a long decade.
