Born in 1961

RTÉ television began broadcasting on New Year's Eve, and Ireland changed overnight. For the first time, families could see the world — or at least, an Irish version of it — in their living rooms. The impact on dress, speech, aspiration, and culture was enormous over the following decade.

The Second Vatican Council was beginning in Rome, and the winds of change were blowing through Catholicism. Ireland's deeply conservative Church would take decades to feel them fully.