In this latest Hit List, Gerry travels back to the Ireland of the 1970s to make his personal selection from the RTÉ archives from that decade. Ireland was a very different country as the 70s began. Contraception, divorce and homosexual acts were all illegal. Sex education was almost non-existent. Emigration was a structural feature of the economy, and there were a million less people living in Ireland than there are today.
But it was also a decade in which new creative forces were released. RTÉ’s hugely popular drama serial, “The Riordans”, opened up new and controversial areas of Irish life. Irish fashion exploded into life. Dana won the Eurovision, and the Boomtown Rats became the first Irish band to have a Number 1 hit single in the UK.
In his selection, Gerry looks at some of the ways in which the conflicts and contradictions of this turbulent decade were reflected in RTÉ’s television output. Among those taking part are Eamon Carr – the drummer in Horslips; John McColgan – Producer of some of RTÉ’s most popular light entertainment shows in the 70s; and Terry Prone – a leading fashion journalist in that decade.