Over the years, RTE have visited Tallaght and made videos for lots of reasons. These short videos tell us a lot about what life was like in Tallaght for our parents and grandparents over the last 50 years.
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1. This video shows Tallaght in the 1970s, and you will see a glimpse of Tallaght Community School when it was first built. TCS was the first community school in Ireland. There is also footage of the Village, the Priory and a few of the nearby housing estates. Watch out for the old-style prams and cars.
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2. This video shows how board games were made in the 1980s. We still have some of these old Scope resources in the school. The presenter visits our neighbours, Scoil Santain. Do you notice anything unusual about the school building? Does it look familiar?
Answer (highlight here -->) : (The building should look very familiar - because it is the same as ours!)
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3. In 1987, when government cutbacks were going to lead to a loss of 73 teachers, all the schools in Tallaght marched through the Village in protest. Can you spot the Scoil Aonghusa Flag? The video is here.
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4. A lot of our parents, grandparents and even great, great, great grandparents worked in the Jacobs factory in Tallaght, and before that in town. This video from 1978 shows you how the factory worked.
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5. The closure of the Jacobs factory in 2009 came as a big shock to everyone after 40 years in Tallaght and 156 years in Ireland. This footage was taken as the staff left the factory for the last time.
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6. Here is footage from the day they started building the red Luas line. It started in Cookstown, near Tallaght hospital.
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7. A very exciting day in Tallaght - the opening of the Red Luas Line - video here.
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8. For a long time in Tallaght, the only proper supermarket was in Kilnamanagh, even though there were 70,000 people living in the area. At the time many households didn’t have a car, so shoppers had to get the bus or walk to Kilnamanagh. This video shows you what Dunnes used to look like when it was first built.
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9. Thankfully a few years later The Square opened, offered two supermarkets, Dunnes Stores and Crazy Prices (now Tesco). This beautiful video shows The Square when it was only half built, thirty years ago. You’ll also notice that there is nothing else built around it, apart from the Tallaght bypass.
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10. In the year 2002, Ireland made it to the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. On the team was Robbie Keane, local man and famous Irish footballer. In this video, RTE interviews his very proud family in their home in Tallaght as they nervously watch him play.