advertising and consumer culture in ireland, 1922-1962: buy irish

This book explores advertising and consumer culture as key aspects of everyday life and national culture in twentieth-century Ireland. It makes a particular argument that the presence of anti-materialist rhetoric in some parts of Irish public life after Independence has obscured the existence of a lively consumer culture throughout the period, as evident in the many advertisements which supported Irish newspapers and magazines, the jingles broadcast on Irish radio, and the neon advertising signs and billboards on Irish streets. The book focuses on the development of the advertising industry itself, and the sophisticated ways in which it worked to associate consumption with national pride. It also considers the advertising of Irish homes and home appliances as an important focus of consumption, and the targeting of Irish women as the principal consumers in those homes, as well as publicity stunts and advertising in public space, and the form and style of commercial broadcasting
and sponsored programming from the earliest days of Irish radio. It finishes with an examination of the opposite extremes of consumer abundance displayed in the annual Christmas advertising, as opposed to the consumer culture response to shortages during World War Two.

Stephanie Rains is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Maynooth University.