We in Northern Ireland were able to view RTE, I think I discovered it on RTE in the early 2000s but watched Neighbours on BBC.
Given that half or our population doesn't watch RTE because of the political division must mean that Catholics had discovered Home & Away before the Protestants in the late 80s.
When I think back to my school days people usually watched both but I didn't know that Neighbours was more popular overall. This was in the 2000s. I much prefer Home & Away, Neighbours feels too light hearted for me and it has been a chore for me to watch the past few years.