Ireland’s television network became the latest in Europe to make the switch from analogue to digital yesterday. I much prefer the higher quality of picture and the greater choice of channels that digital TV offers, though there are also certain things about watching the telly before the arrival of digital that I’ll miss. The first TV set that arrived in my family home, a black and white Ferguson 21-inch, didn’t get a lot of use for the first few years. You see, we only had the one channel until a second one appeared in 1978. RTE had been going since 1961 and programmes didn’t start until about five in the afternoon and finished well before midnight. I remember watching lots of cartoons, cop shows and sitcoms around that time and all in black and white. We got our first colour telly around 1985 and a VCR a few years later. I didn’t get access to the BBC and Channel 4 until I moved into Limerick city about twenty years ago
