Loreto Milford '73 Reunion

A few photos taken by the Tirconaill Tribune back in November 2023

A few photos from our 50 years reunion on the 18th November 2023

As Rod Stewart once sang, "tonight's the night " - hope to see you all in the Silver Tassie Hotel

Final reminder - Loreto Milford class of '73-78 Reunion tomorrow night Saturday 18th November 2023 from 7pm in the Silver Tassie Hotel

Reunion this coming Saturday Night !

The Bee Gees won't be there, but we hope many of our 73-78 group will be !

Entertainment in 1978
• The most popular film of 1978 saw John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John star in the film version of the musical comedy Grease.
• At the 50th Academy Awards, Annie Hall won four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director (Woody Allen), and Best Actress (Diane Keaton). On the other hand, Star Wars won six Oscars, including Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction.
• The Bee Gees album, Saturday Night Fever, went #1 for 24 weeks.
• On April 2, the primetime soap opera, Dallas, debuted on CBS and ran for 14 seasons.

What happened in other sports in 1978
1. Leon Spinks defeated Muhammad Ali by decision in 15 rounds to win the world heavyweight title, but Ali recovered the title in their rematch. It was the first time a boxer won the world heavyweight title for a third time.
2. Tennis great Martina Navratilova won her first grand slam title by defeating the seven-time grand slam winner Chris Evert in Wimbledon. Bjorn Borg won the Wimbledon for the third straight year, a streak that continued for two more years.
3. Jack Nicklaus won the US Masters and the British Open for his 10th and 11th major title, the U.S. Open was won by Andy North, and US PGA was won by John Mahaffey
4. Kerry comprehensively beat Dublin in the All Ireland Final in1978 by 5-11 to 0-9. Kevin Moran, who had signed for Manchester United in February 1978, was given permission from the club to line out for Dublin in their Leinster semi-final defeat of Offaly. He remained on the panel for all of Dublin's subsequent games.
5. In 1978, Cork featuring the legendary Jimmy Barry Murphy defeated a Kilkenny team which included future manager Brian Cody.

Reminder - we will be meeting up on Saturday coming (18th) for our long awaited reunion in the Silver Tassie Hotel

Football Highlights in 1978 as we prepared for and sat the Leaving Cert Exams...

• Nottingham Forest were League champions (1977-78 season) as we geared up for the Leaving Cert, and also beat Liverpool in the League Cup final.
• Liverpool won the European Cup in 1978 with Kenny Dalglish scoring the winner against Bruges at Wembley.
• Kevin Keegan, by then playing for Hamburg, won the 1978 Ballon D’Or.
• The 1978 FA Cup Final produced another shock when Ipswich Town beat Arsenal 1-0, with the winner scored by Roger Osborne. Bobby Robson was Ipswich manager and this win heralded an era of success for the club leading to winning the 1981 EUFA Cup.
• Rangers won the League in Scotland, with Celtic back in 3rd behind Aberdeen.
• Back home Bohemians won the League of Ireland with Finn Harps just 2 points behind them in 2nd place in a 16 team league, featuring Cork Albert, Cork Celtic and Thurles Town, along with current clubs.
• Shamrock Rovers beat Sligo Rovers 1-0 in the 1978 FAI Cup Final with the team featuring John Giles, Eamon Dunphy, Ray Treacy and Pierce O’Leary among others.

The big event during the exams was the 1978 World Cup finals in Argentina, won by the host nation who beat Holland 3-1 after extra time. Mario Kempes was the main source of goals in a team including Ossie Ardiles who moved to Spurs after the tournament.

Entertainment in 1973
• The top grossing film was The Exorcist, followed by The Sting, American Graffiti and Papillon.
• The Sting, with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, proved most popular at the Oscars with 4 awards including Best Picture, while Jack Lemmon and Glenda Jackson took the top individual awards. Many a piano student in “The Convent” learnt to play the unforgettable theme tune from The Sting, called “The Entertainer”
• The year's highest-grossing actor worldwide was Hong Kong martial arts film star Bruce Lee, who died the same year, (and, no he didn’t take his vast earnings with him !).
• Some of the popular TV shows starting their runs in 1973 on UK television, which most of us had in Donegal, included - Last of the Summer Wine, Some mothers do ‘ave ‘em, Are you being served, Open all hours, M*A*S*H, That’s Life, Man about the House, Billy Liar and The Streets of San Francisco.
• Of the current soap operas, Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm were popular going out twice a week, while Crossroads was also rarely missed.
• Crime series like Z cars and Dickson of Dock Green, comedy programmes – The Two Ronnies, Steptoe & son, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, On the Buses and many more, kept us from our school books in 1973.

What kind of music were we listening to in 1973:

• Top of the Pops on a Thursday night and the top 30 on radio was mostly how we accessed music, if you didn’t go out and buy singles or albums (LP’s) on vinyl.
• According to Billboard magazine, the top selling single in 1973 was “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree” by Tony Orlando and Dawn, making the No. 1 slot in 8 countries.
• The song won the Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg in 1973, their 2nd in a row
• Donny Osmond secured the record for most top 10 hits in 1973 with six hit singles but sister Marie and the family group, The Osmonds also had top ten hits.
• David Bowie peaked in the top 10 with five singles in 1973, including songs like “The Jean Genie" and “Life on Mars"
• Slade made chart history by going straight in at number-one an unprecedented three times with "Cum on Feel The Noize”, Skweeze Me, Please Me” and “Merry Christmas Everybody”, the last of which became the Christmas No. 1 single in 1973, and still very popular today.
• Other popular artists around as we started the Covent included: David Cassidy & The Partridge Family, Wizzard, Suzi Quatro, Barry Blue and David Essex. More enduring names over the years included 10CC, Elton John, Paul McCartney & Wings, TRex, Rod Stewart, Roxy Music and Status Quo were among the other artists who had multiple top 10 entries in 1973.
• Closer to home, the early 70’s was very much the showband era, with artists like Brendan Shine, Larry Cunningham, Brian Coll, The Indians, The Cotton Mill Boys, Margo, Philomena Begley, Johnny McEvoy and Ray Lynam popular in venues around the country.
• Of particular interest to the class of 73, Clannad secured first place in the annual folk festival in Letterkenny and were offered a deal with Philips Records. They recorded their debut album “Clannad” in Dublin, choosing songs in Irish and English, which was released in 1973. The group soon found themselves more popular outside Ireland, particularly in Germany. Later in 1973, Clannad competed for Ireland in the heat stages of the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "An Pháirc". All this was going on as a young family member, Eithne Ni Bhraoinan, enrolled in Loreto College Milford and took her place in Naomh Crona.

You are officially invited to the reunion! No formalities, just a catch up with friends old and new, exchange a few stories, some finger food and a glass or two of your favourite tipple...

Gentle reminder - 2 weeks tomorrow we will be meeting up for our long awaited reunion!

Here’s a look at what was happening in other Sports in 1973
• In GAA, Cork beat Galway to win the Sam Maguire and Limerick beat Kilkenny in the hurling, with the winners bridging gaps of 28 years and 33 years respectively.
• In horse racing, 1973 is often considered among the greatest Grand Nationals of all time, and the dramatic final-stretch battle between the two greats Crisp and Red Rum has also been described as one of the greatest sporting moments. The victory was the first of Red Rum’s three Grand National wins, in which he staged a spectacular comeback to beat Crisp on the run-in after having trailed by 15 lengths at the final fence.
• In golf, Jack Nicklaus was the dominant force in the game and won his 12th Major, the PGA Championship. Other major winners included Tom Weiskoff, Johnny Miller & Tommy Aaron.
• In tennis, Billie Jean King was coming to the fore displacing Margaret Court who still holds the grand slam titles record of 24. John Newcombe was the big name in men’s tennis until the legendary Bjorn Borg emerged in 1974 winning the Australian Open, his first grand slam title, and over our school years he went on to win Wimbledon 5 years in a row, striking up a great rivalry with the tempestuous but highly entertaining John McEnroe.
• Scottish driver Jackie Stewart became Formula 1 Champion after the Italian Grand Prix

Here’s a look at what was happening in Football in 1973 the year we started secondary school:

• Johan Cruyff won the 2nd of his 4 Ballon D’Or awards, easily topping a list which included Dino Zoff, Beckenbauer & Muller of West Germany and featuring the great Pat Jennings further down.
• The1973 FA Cup Final produced a major shock when lowly Sunderland beat red hot favourites Leeds United 1-0, do you remember who scored ?
• It’s hard to believe now that the FA Cup Final was probably the only live match we saw in 1973, with highlights of a couple of matches shown on Match of The Day on a Saturday night and The Big Match on a Sunday afternoon, (featuring mainly London-based teams).
• Liverpool were League champions (1972-73 season) as we entered the Convent, their first trophy since 1966 in Bill Shankly's penultimate season as manager.
• Celtic were top of an 18 team League in Scotland, which featured teams like East Fife, Ayr, Arbroath & Airdrie. A far cry from the current league.
• Back home Cork Celtic won the League of Ireland with Finn Harps 4th in a 14 team league. This era was to be the heyday for Harps who won the FAI Cup in the 1973-74 season, beating St. Patrick’s Athletic with goals from the legendary Brendan Bradley (2) and Charlie Ferry in Dalymount Park.
• One of the most memorable live matches matches we saw in 1973 featured Jan Tomaszewski who he entered footballing folklore with a virtuoso, if unorthodox, goalkeeping performance on 17th October 1973. Famously dubbed a "circus clown in gloves" by Brian Clough on TV before kick-off, his heroics helped Poland hold England in a game Sir Alf Ramsey's side needed to win to reach the 1974 World Cup finals. None of the England team were laughing at the end of a completely one-sided match that saw them take 36 shots to Poland's two, force 26 corners, hit the woodwork twice and have four efforts cleared off the line. England had been at every World Cup finals since they entered for the first time in 1950, had won the tournament less than eight years earlier, and had been one of the best teams at the 1970 finals in Mexico too.

Here’s a look at what was happening in the country and the world when we entered Loreto College Milford (ie “The Convent”) in 1973
• Ireland joined the European Economic Community (EEC) along with Britain and Denmark following a referendum in which 83% voted in favour of joining.
• Eamon De Valera was in his final year as President, before being replaced by Erskine Childers as Ireland’s 4th President in May
• Liam Cosgrove became the Taoiseach of a Fine Gael and Labour coalition government, succeeding the Jack Lynch led Fianna Fail government which had been in power for 16 years.
• This was the era of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland and in 1973 a referendum was held there over whether to reunite with the Republic of Ireland or to stay a part of the UK. The result was 98% remain. This led to the planting by the IRA of four car bombs in London on the same day, 2 of which went off, causing one death and injuring over 200 people.
• Richard Nixon was inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. James McCord and G. Gordon Liddy were convicted of the Watergate break-in.
• Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho signed the Paris peace accords and a cease-fire was enacted. Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize
• The oil crisis of 1973 generated inflationary forces, increasing energy and commodity prices. The crisis was caused by the refusal of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to sell crude to the U.S. All in all, not much has changed in 50 years !
• Sydney Opera House was opened by Queen Elizabeth after 14 years of construction
• A sign of things to come - the first handheld mobile phone call was made by Martin Cooper of Motorola in New York City

It is 50 years this month since we walked in the doors of Loreto College Milford as first year students. With that in mind, a number of us have gotten together to organise a reunion in mid November. The date agreed is Saturday 18th November 2023 in the Silver Tassie Hotel, near Letterkenny, from 7pm. We have tried to get as many names as possible and hope you can spread the word among each other, including those who joined our group in later years, post Inter-cert or to repeat the Leaving Cert. It will be a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and former class mates.