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  •

    1884 Charles Stuart Parnell Portrait

    €250.00
    85cm x 72cm  Rathdrum Co Wicklow Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) will be remembered as one of the most iconic and indeed controversial politicians in Irish history.MP and Leader of the Irish Parliamentary or Home Rule Party from1882 to 1891 until revelations of his adulterous love affair with Kitty O'Shea forced his resignation.He died shortly afterwards from pneumonia in the arms of his newly divorced and remarried wife Katherine.His death was considered to be a direct result of the stresses he endured because of the Victorian era scandal and his subsequent funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin was attended by more than 200000 people.His notability was such that his gravestone of unhewn Wicklow granite, erected in 1940,reads only Parnell. This faithful portrayal of Parnell,well over 130 years old, by the artist JG Wills dates to 1884 and is a beautiful homage to the "uncrowned king of Ireland".  
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  • Original Dunville & Co Whisky Print

    €250.00
    Dunville & Co Whisky Distillery was founded in Belfast Co Antrim in the 1820s,after initially gaining success as a whisky blender before constructing its own distillery.In 1837 Dunville began producing its most popular whiskey,Dunvilles VR.Athough Dunvilles was established and based in Ireland before partition and Irish Whiskey is normally spellt with an 'e',Dunvilles Whisky was always spelt without the vowel.This beautiful original print,originating from the Glens of Co Antrim,shows off the extent of the size of its Belfast distillery operation back in the day. Belfast   63cm x 80cm
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    Murphy’s Extra Stout Cork Vintage Tin Sign

    €240.00
    Classic old tin advertising sign dating from the 1920s.Prizes won by the much lauded Murphy's Brewery of Ladys Well,Cork are mentioned on the sign such as from the Dublin Exhibition of 1892 and its Manchester Counterpart from 1895. 40cm x 60cm    Schull Co Cork

    JAMES J. MURPHY

    Born on November 1825, James Jeremiah Murphy was the eldest son of fifteen children born to Jeremiah James Murphy and Catherine Bullen. James J. served his time in the family business interest and was also involved in the running of a local distillery in Cork. He sold his share in this distillery to fund his share of the set up costs of the brewery in 1856. James J. was the senior partner along with his four other brothers. It was James who guided to the brewery to success in its first forty years and he saw its output grow to 100,000 barrels before his death in 1897. James J. through his life had a keen interest in sport, rowing, sailing and GAA being foremost. He was a supporter of the Cork Harbour Rowing Club and the Royal Cork Yacht Club and the Cork County Board of the GAA. James J. philanthropic efforts were also well known in the city supporting hospitals, orphanages and general relief of distress in the city so much so on his death being described as a ‘prince in the charitable world’. It is James J. that epitomises the Murphy’s brand in stature and quality of character.
    1854

    OUR LADY’S WELL BREWERY

    In 1854 James J. and his brothers purchased the buildings of the Cork foundling Hospital and on this site built the brewery. The brewery eventually became known as the Lady’s Well Brewery as it is situated adjacent to a famous ‘Holy Well’ and water source that had become a famous place of devotion during penal times.
    1856

    THE BEGINNING

    James J. Murphy and his brothers found James J. Murphy & Co. and begin brewing.
    1861

    FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

    In 1861 the brewery produced 42,990 barrels and began to impose itself as one of the major breweries in the country.
    1885

    A FRIEND OF THE POOR, HURRAH

    James J. was a much loved figure in Cork, a noted philanthropist and indeed hero of the entire city at one point. The ‘Hurrah for the hero’ song refers to James J’s heroic efforts to save the local economy from ruin in the year of 1885. The story behind this is that when the key bank for the region the ‘Munster Bank’ was close to ruin, which could have led to an economic disaster for the entire country and bankruptcy for thousands, James J. stepped in and led the venture to establish a new bank the ‘Munster and Leinster’, saving the Munster Bank depositors and creditors from financial loss and in some cases, ruin. His exploits in saving the bank, led to the writing of many a poem and song in his honour including ‘Hurrah for the man who’s a friend of the poor’, which would have been sung in pubs for many years afterwards.
    1889

    THE MALT HOUSE

    In 1889 a Malt House for the brewery was built at a cost of 4,640 pounds and was ‘built and arranged on the newest principle and fitted throughout with the latest appliances known to modern science”. Today the Malthouse is one of the most famous Cork landmarks and continues to function as offices for Murphy’s.
    1892

    MURPHY’S GOLD

    Murphy’s Stout wins the Gold medal at the Brewers and Allied Trades Exhibition in Dublin and again wins the supreme award when the exhibition is held in Manchester in 1895. These same medals feature on our Murphy’s packaging today. Murphy’s have continued it’s tradition of excellence in brewing winning Gold again at the Brewing Industry International awards in 2002 and also gaining medals in the subsequent two competitions.
    1893

    MURPHY’S FOR STRENGTH

    Eugen Sandow the world famous ‘strongman’, endorses Murphy’s Stout: “From experience I can strongly recommend Messrs JJ Murphy’s Stout”. The famous Murphy’s image of Sandow lifting a horse was then created.
    1906

    THE JUBILEE

    The Brewery celebrates its 50th anniversary. On Whit Monday the brewery workforce and their families are treated to an excursion by train to Killarney. Paddy Barrett the youngest of the workforce that day at 13 went on to become head porter for the brewery and could recall the day vividly 50 years later.
    1913

    SWIMMING IN STOUT

    In the year of 1913 the No.5 Vat at ‘Lady’s Well’ Brewery burst and sent 23,000 galleons of porter flooding through the brewey and out on to Leitrim Street. The Cork Constitution, the local newspaper of the time wrote that “a worker had a most exciting experience and in the onrush of porter he had to swim in it for about 40 yards to save himself from asphyxiation”
    1914

    JOINING UP

    The First World War marked an era of dramatic change both in the countries fortune and on a much smaller scale that of the Brewery’s. On the 13 August James J. Murphy and Co. joined the other members of the Cork Employers Federation in promising that ‘all constant employees volunteering to join any of his Majesties forces for active service in compliance with the call for help by the Government will be facilitated and their places given back to them at the end of the war’. Eighteen of the Brewery’s workers joined up including one sixteen year old. Ten never returned.
    1915

    THE FIRST LORRY IN IRELAND

    James J. Murphy & Co. purchase the first petrol lorry in the country.
    1920

    THE BURNING OF CORK

    On the 11-12th December the centre of Cork city was extensively damaged by fire including four of the company’s tied houses (Brewery owned establishments). The company was eventually compensated for its losses by the British government.
    1921

    MURPHY’S IN A BOTTLE

    In 1921 James J. Murphy and Co. open a bottling plant and bottle their own stout. A foreman and four ‘boys’ were installed to run the operation and the product quickly won ‘good trade’.
    1924

    THE FIRST CAMPAIGNS

    In 1924 the Murphy’s Brewery began to embrace advertising. In the decades prior to this the attitude had been somewhat negative with one director stating ‘We do not hope to thrive on pushing and puffing; our sole grounds for seeking popular favour is the excellence of our product’.
    1940

    WWII

    In 1940 at the height of the London Blitz the Murphy’s auditing firm is completely destroyed. The war which had indirectly affected the firm in terms of shortages of fuel and materials now affected the brewery directly.
    1953

    LT. COL JOHN FITZJAMES

    In 1953 the last direct descendant of James J. takes over Chairmanship of the firm. Affectionately known in the Brewery as the ‘Colonel’ he ran the company until 1981.
    1961

    THE IRON LUNG

    Complete replacement of old wooden barrels to aluminium lined vessels (kegs) known as ‘Iron lungs’ draws to an end the era of ‘Coopers’ the tradesmen who built the wooden barrels on site in the Brewery for so many decades.
    1979

    MURPHY’S IN AMERICA

    Murphy’s reaches Americans shores for the first time winning back many drinkers lost to emigration and a whole new generation of stout drinkers.

    1985

    MURPHY’S GOES INTERNATIONAL

    Murphy’s Launched as a National and International Brand. Exports included UK, US and Canada. Introduction of the first 25cl long neck stout bottle.
    1994

    MURPHY’S OPEN

    Murphy’s commence sponsorship of the hugely successful Murphy’s Irish Open Golf Championship culminating in Colm Montgomery’s ‘Monty’s’ famous third win at ‘Fota Island’ in 2002.
    2005

    MURPHY’S GOLD

    Murphy’s wins Gold at the Brewing Industry International Awards a testament to it’s superior taste and quality. Indeed 2003 was the first of three successive wins in this competition.
    2006

    150 YEARS OF BREWING LEGEND

    The Murphy Brewery celebrates 150 years of brewing from 1856 to 2006 going from strength to strength; the now legendary stout is sold in over 40 countries and recognised worldwide as superior stout. We hope James J. would be proud.
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  • Vintage,rare Wilsons Old Irish Whisky Belfast Advert

    €200.00
    74cm x 55cm Beautifully presented in an antique gilded frame.
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  • Vintage Guinness For Strength John Gilroy Golfers Advert

    €200.00
    75cm x 53cm Arthur Guinness started brewing ales in 1759 at the St James Gate Brewery,Dublin.On 31st December 1759 he signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery.Ten years later, on 19 May 1769, Guinness first exported his ale: he shipped six-and-a-half barrels to Great Britain before he started selling the dark beer porter in 1778. The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s.Throughout the bulk of its history, Guinness produced only three variations of a single beer type: porter or single stout, double or extra and foreign stout for export. “Stout” originally referred to a beer’s strength, but eventually shifted meaning toward body and colour.Porter was also referred to as “plain”, as mentioned in the famous refrain of Flann O’Brien‘s poem “The Workman’s Friend”: “A pint of plain is your only man.” Already one of the top-three British and Irish brewers, Guinness’s sales soared from 350,000 barrels in 1868 to 779,000 barrels in 1876.In October 1886 Guinness became a public company, and was averaging sales of 1,138,000 barrels a year. This was despite the brewery’s refusal to either advertise or offer its beer at a discount. Even though Guinness owned no public houses, the company was valued at £6 million and shares were twenty times oversubscribed, with share prices rising to a 60 per cent premium on the first day of trading. The breweries pioneered several quality control efforts. The brewery hired the statistician William Sealy Gosset in 1899, who achieved lasting fame under the pseudonym “Student” for techniques developed for Guinness, particularly Student’s t-distribution and the even more commonly known Student’s t-test. By 1900 the brewery was operating unparalleled welfare schemes for its 5,000 employees. By 1907 the welfare schemes were costing the brewery £40,000 a year, which was one-fifth of the total wages bill. The improvements were suggested and supervised by Sir John Lumsden. By 1914, Guinness was producing 2,652,000 barrels of beer a year, which was more than double that of its nearest competitor Bass, and was supplying more than 10 per cent of the total UK beer market. In the 1930s, Guinness became the seventh largest company in the world. Before 1939, if a Guinness brewer wished to marry a Catholic, his resignation was requested. According to Thomas Molloy, writing in the Irish Independent, “It had no qualms about selling drink to Catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s.” Guinness thought they brewed their last porter in 1973. In the 1970s, following declining sales, the decision was taken to make Guinness Extra Stout more “drinkable”. The gravity was subsequently reduced, and the brand was relaunched in 1981. Pale malt was used for the first time, and isomerized hop extract began to be used. In 2014, two new porters were introduced: West Indies Porter and Dublin Porter. Guinness acquired the Distillers Company in 1986.This led to a scandal and criminal trialconcerning the artificial inflation of the Guinness share price during the takeover bid engineered by the chairman, Ernest Saunders. A subsequent £5.2 million success fee paid to an American lawyer and Guinness director, Tom Ward, was the subject of the case Guinness plc v Saunders, in which the House of Lords declared that the payment had been invalid. In the 1980s, as the IRA’s bombing campaign spread to London and the rest of Britain, Guinness considered scrapping the Harp as its logo. The company merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo. Due to controversy over the merger, the company was maintained as a separate entity within Diageo and has retained the rights to the product and all associated trademarks of Guinness.
    The Guinness Brewery Park Royal during demolition, at its peak the largest and most productive brewery in the world.
    The Guinness brewery in Park Royal, London closed in 2005. The production of all Guinness sold in the UK and Ireland was moved to St. James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin. Guinness has also been referred to as “that black stuff”. Guinness had a fleet of ships, barges and yachts. The Irish Sunday Independent newspaper reported on 17 June 2007 that Diageo intended to close the historic St James’s Gate plant in Dublin and move to a greenfield site on the outskirts of the city.This news caused some controversy when it was announced.The following day, the Irish Daily Mail ran a follow-up story with a double page spread complete with images and a history of the plant since 1759. Initially, Diageo said that talk of a move was pure speculation but in the face of mounting speculation in the wake of the Sunday Independent article, the company confirmed that it is undertaking a “significant review of its operations”. This review was largely due to the efforts of the company’s ongoing drive to reduce the environmental impact of brewing at the St James’s Gate plant. On 23 November 2007, an article appeared in the Evening Herald, a Dublin newspaper, stating that the Dublin City Council, in the best interests of the city of Dublin, had put forward a motion to prevent planning permission ever being granted for development of the site, thus making it very difficult for Diageo to sell off the site for residential development. On 9 May 2008, Diageo announced that the St James’s Gate brewery will remain open and undergo renovations, but that breweries in Kilkenny and Dundalk will be closed by 2013 when a new larger brewery is opened near Dublin. The result will be a loss of roughly 250 jobs across the entire Diageo/Guinness workforce in Ireland.Two days later, the Sunday Independent again reported that Diageo chiefs had met with Tánaiste Mary Coughlan, the deputy leader of the Government of Ireland, about moving operations to Ireland from the UK to benefit from its lower corporation tax rates. Several UK firms have made the move in order to pay Ireland’s 12.5 per cent rate rather than the UK’s 28 per cent rate. Diageo released a statement to the London stock exchange denying the report.Despite the merger that created Diageo plc in 1997, Guinness has retained its right to the Guinness brand and associated trademarks and thus continues to trade under the traditional Guinness name despite trading under the corporation name Diageo for a brief period in 1997. In November 2015 it was announced that Guinness are planning to make their beer suitable for consumption by vegetarians and vegans by the end of 2016 through the introduction of a new filtration process at their existing Guinness Brewery that avoids the need to use isinglass from fish bladders to filter out yeast particles.This went into effect in 2017, per the company’s FAQ webpage where they state: “Our new filtration process has removed the use of isinglass as a means of filtration and vegans can now enjoy a pint of Guinness. All Guinness Draught in keg format is brewed without using isinglass. Full distribution of bottle and can formats will be in place by the end of 2017, so until then, our advice to vegans is to consume the product from the keg format only for now. Guinness stout is made from water, barley, roast malt extract, hops, and brewer’s yeast. A portion of the barley is roasted to give Guinness its dark colour and characteristic taste. It is pasteurisedand filtered. Until the late 1950s Guinness was still racked into wooden casks. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Guinness ceased brewing cask-conditioned beers and developed a keg brewing system with aluminium kegs replacing the wooden casks; these were nicknamed “iron lungs”.Until 2016 the production of Guinness, as with many beers, involved the use of isinglass made from fish. Isinglass was used as a fining agent for settling out suspended matter in the vat. The isinglass was retained in the floor of the vat but it was possible that minute quantities might be carried over into the beer. Diageo announced in February 2018 that the use of isinglass in draught Guinness was to be discontinued and an alternative clarification agent would be used instead. This has made draught Guinness acceptable to vegans and vegetarians. Arguably its biggest change to date, in 1959 Guinness began using nitrogen, which changed the fundamental texture and flavour of the Guinness of the past as nitrogen bubbles are much smaller than CO2, giving a “creamier” and “smoother” consistency over a sharper and traditional CO2 taste. This step was taken after Michael Ash – a mathematician turned brewer – discovered the mechanism to make this possible. Nitrogen is less soluble than carbon dioxide, which allows the beer to be put under high pressure without making it fizzy. High pressure of the dissolved gas is required to enable very small bubbles to be formed by forcing the draught beer through fine holes in a plate in the tap, which causes the characteristic “surge” (the widget in cans and bottles achieves the same effect). This “widget” is a small plastic ball containing the nitrogen. The perceived smoothness of draught Guinness is due to its low level of carbon dioxide and the creaminess of the head caused by the very fine bubbles that arise from the use of nitrogen and the dispensing method described above. “Foreign Extra Stout” contains more carbon dioxide, causing a more acidic taste. Contemporary Guinness Draught and Extra Stout are weaker than they were in the 19th century, when they had an original gravity of over 1.070. Foreign Extra Stout and Special Export Stout, with abv of 7.5% and 9% respectively, are perhaps closest to the original in character.Although Guinness may appear to be black, it is officially a very dark shade of ruby. The most recent change in alcohol content from the Import Stout to the Extra Stout was due to a change in distribution through North American market. Consumer complaints have influenced recent distribution and bottle changes.
    Studies claim that Guinness can be beneficial to the heart. Researchers found that “‘antioxidantcompounds’ in the Guinness, similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, are responsible for the health benefits because they slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls.”Guinness ran an advertising campaign in the 1920s which stemmed from market research – when people told the company that they felt good after their pint, the slogan, created by Dorothy L. Sayers–”Guinness is Good for You”. Advertising for alcoholic drinks that implies improved physical performance or enhanced personal qualities is now prohibited in Ireland.Diageo, the company that now manufactures Guinness, says: “We never make any medical claims for our drinks.”
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  • Clan Campbell Scotch Whisky Mirror

    €200.00
    53cm x 53cm  Belfast Clan Campbell whisky originated around 1937 when Forbes Macgregor & Company changed their name to S. Campbell & Son. A relative newcomer as far as blends go but none the less it is still an excellent quality blended whisky. The whisky takes it name from the Clan Campbell which is one of the most renowned clans, under its chief the Duke of Argyle. Clan Campbell whisky contains at least 30 percent malt of which the majority is Speyside malts with Aberlour being a major contributor. It is a very well rounded blend with pleasurable hints of the delightfully smooth aromatic Aberlour malt.
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  • Vintage Mitchells Old Irish Whiskey Belfast Cruiskeen Lawn Advert

    €200.00
    Mitchells Cruiskeen Lawn Old Irish Whiskey Advert. 48cm x 60cm Coleraine Co Antrim Once a giant of the distilling business along with Dunvilles,Mitchell’s fall from grace, like so many other superb Irish distilleries was symptomatic of the economic climate and circumstances of the time. Charles William Mitchell originated from Scotland and took over his fathers distillery in the Campletown area .In the 1860s he moved to Belfast and became manager of Dunvilles Whiskey before establishing his own brand Mitchell & Co tomb St in the late 1860s.A newspaper report in 1895 hailed the virtues of Mitchells Cruiskeen Lawn Whisky,which secured prizes around the world including first place at the New Orleans Exposition.It was a rare Mitchells Cruiskeen Lawn Whiskey mirror that recently commanded £11500 at auction in 2018 following the sale of the contents of an old Donegal public house. Indeed Mitchell’s were renowned for advertising their products on mirrors, trade cards, minature atlas books and pottery to name just a few. Below is the original mirror that was commissioned for their Tomb Street premises on the launch of their Cruiskeen Lawn Old Irish Whisky, late 1800’s. Two were made for the entrance of their Tomb Street premises.  Inscribed is the Cruiskeen Lawn poem, with gold leaf barley with green and red in the Mitchell Crest. Definately the holy grail of all mirrors,  a true treasure and still survives today in the heart of Belfast and worth the above mentioned princely sum and now probably more !
    mirror1 Some original and rare Mitchell mirrors are still surviving today and can be found in some pubs in and around Belfast today wp_20160429_14_37_16_pro Some other examples of Mitchell Mirrors which were mass produced for advertising their products
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    mirror-mitchell-4
    mitchell-jug
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  • ‘Woodford’s Whiskies are the best’ Vintage Advert

    €200.00
    Beautifully reproduced Woodford,Bourne & Co.Ltd Whiskey mirror. 50cm x 60cm Limerick Woodford Whiskies traded in Cork city for over 250 years. The warehouse was the hub of the companies bottling, storage and distribution operations supplying four shops in Cork and one in Limerick. The building was constructed between 1873 and 1875 at a cost of £4,500. When completed in 1875 the building was considered one of the finest in the city and today continues to be a listed building. The building with its cut limestone frontage has thick floor and roof beams made from imported Canadian white pine to support the weight of the full casks of wine and spirits stored in the warehouse. On the ground floor, you can still see the vaulted ceilings of the original cellars and throughout the building the thick stone walls built with master craftsmanship are on view everywhere. Over 10 years supply of whiskey, casks containing over a million bottles of wine, sherries and ports and more than 50,000 gallons of choice Cork and Dublin whiskies, Scotch whiskies and fine French brandies were all stored from seven to 10 years in wet and dry cellars.
    Woodford Bourne
    Subsequent to a fire the building was restored and in 2001 received 1st Place in the Cork Corporation 'Better Building Award' for the restoration of a historic building. A book entitled 'The History of Woodford Bourne', written by David Nicholson a member of the family, was successfully launched in the warehouse in 2005.  
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  • Cork Distilleries Ltd Old Irish Whisky “Paddy” Advert

    €200.00
    Extremely rare Cork Distilleries Ltd Old Irish Whisky Advertising Print.We estimate this beautifully and originally framed advert to be well in excess of 120 years old, which we can tell by the Cork telephone exchange numbers 151 and 850.How Paddy whiskey became to be known synonymously is a fascinating story.Reprographics and original available in aged frames-please email us at irishpubemporium@gmail.com for price. 57cm x 48cm   Cork The Cork Distilleries Company was founded in 1867 to merge four existing distilleries in Cork city (the North Mall, the Green, Watercourse Road, and Daly's) under the control of one group.A fifth distillery, the Midleton distillery, joined the group soon after in 1868. In 1882, the company hired a young Corkman called Paddy Flaherty as a salesman. Flaherty travelled the pubs of Cork marketing the company's unwieldy named "Cork Distilleries Company Old Irish Whiskey". His sales techniques (which including free rounds of drinks for customers) were so good, that when publicans ran low on stock they would write the distillery to reorder cases of "Paddy Flaherty's whiskey". In 1912, with his name having become synonymous with the whiskey, the distillery officially renamed the whiskey Paddy Irish Whiskey in his honour. In 1920s and 1930s in Ireland, whiskey was sold in casks from the distillery to wholesalers, who would in turn sell it on to publicans. To prevent fluctuations in quality due to middlemen diluting their casks, Cork Distilleries Company decided to bottle their own whiskey known as Paddy, becoming one of the first to do so. Origins :Co Cork Dimensions :60cm x 48cm  7kg
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  • The Old Bog Road Connemara Irish Whiskey Advert

    €200.00
    Highly unusual Connemara The Old Bog Road Homemade Pot Still Whiskey Advert. 60cm x 47cm   Clifden Co Galway Because of the dearth of information surrounding this advert, we suspect that this advert may have been a cover for a poitín distilling operation perhaps, whose spiritual home and epicentre would have been in Connemara and the West of Ireland. Poitín is actually our national drink - not the black stuff of corporations or the mass-produced whiskey of the clubhouse elite. It came before them, it came from us. A magical white spirit, it belonged to every man and woman. Before whiskey there was poitín. Poitín is Ireland’s original spirit and the precursor to modern-day whiskey, with a rich history and an irreverent past. Banned for over 200 years by a foreign parliament, poitín was considered by most to be a vastly superior product to the mass-produced legal whiskeys, or ‘parliament whiskeys’, made by the large manufacturers. To quote the Irish writer and clergyman Caesar Otway – “To every Irishman poitín is superior in sweetness, salubriety and gusto, to all that machinery, science and capital can produce in the legalised way”. The word ‘poitín’ comes from the Irish word for a pot, ‘pota’. This refers to the small pot-still commonly used by poitín distillers. Being caught with a poitín still by the excise men, sometimes accompanied by the British army, would mean a hefty fine or time spent in jail. Traditionally poitín was distilled from malted grains such as barley, oats, wheat and occasionally rye. Only relatively recently was poitín made from alternative ingredients such as potatoes, whey, beets or sugar. The highest quality poitín is still that made from grain alone. The traditional drink at Irish wakes, funerals, weddings and fairs, poitín is also renowned for its medicinal properties. A hot poitín is still considered by many to be the best way to get rid of a cold or flu. Poitín is also rumoured to be a remedy for impotence, as well as a powerful aphrodisiac. Thankfully, poitín is now legal again (since 1997), after a 200 year ‘hiatus’. It enjoys Geographical Indicative Protection from the European Union, and may only be produced on the island of Ireland.
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  • Portlaoise Prison Republican Prisoner Art 1916 painting on Linen

    €200.00
    Unique piece of art relating to the 1916 Uprising  as painted by IRA prisoners in Portlaois Prison .The names of the artist and comrades are clearly to be seen on the front and back of the painting, which appears to be painted on bed linen. 56cm x 42cm   Portlaoise Co Laois   The following article gives some background to the cultural significance of Republican Art . Aodh was born in the Gorbals district of Glasgow in 1950 to Dan and Madge Doherty from County Donegal. Like many young, rural Irish, they had to emigrate to find work. In the parish of the Gorbals, they met and got married in the mid 1940s. Although living away, they always viewed Donegal as their home. Aodh spent his youth commuting between the two parishes, returning ‘home’ to Donegal as often as possible. By the late 1960s, Aodh was living full-time in Ireland. As fate would have it, Aodh’s life journey would see him serve 22 years in 16 English prisons and being moved 21 times, all for his belief in Irish republicanism. After his capture at the conclusion of the Balcombe Street Siege in December 1975, Aodh was held on remand for over a year, during which he was transferred to Wandsworth Prison, where he spent this time in solitary confinement. This meant him being confined to a prison cell for 23 hours, only being allowed out for one hour’s exercise per day. At their trial in the Old Bailey in 1977, Aodh and his comrades, as Irish republicans, refused to recognise the legitimacy of an English court, resulting in multiple life sentences being given to all four. Aodh was sentenced to 11 terms of life imprisonment, with a judicial recommendation he serve at least 30 years behind bars. He was then sent to Leicester’s maximum-security prison where he was held in the notorious Special Secure Unit for the highest risk ‘Category A’ prisoners. In 1980, on his eighth move, Aodh was transferred to the SSU in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. It was during his stay here that Aodh first became interested in painting. He started by observing other prisoners during their art classes and with the inspiration of Peter Leath, a seascape artist resident on the Isle of Wight and who taught art classes to prisoners to supplement his income, Aodh began to discover his hidden talent. Aodh will openly admit that without the encouragement of Peter Leath he may never have taken up art. Up until this point the only painting that he had been involved in was whitewashing local cottages and glossing window frames and doors. By 1982, Aodh had started to produce paintings. His earliest works were landscapes and seascapes, reflecting scenes and childhood memories from around his home in Ireland. During 1986 and part of 1987, Aodh was ‘ghosted’ among three prisons. ‘Ghosting’ (or Rule 43) meant that a prisoner could be moved to another prison without any prior notice. This sudden move usually occurred at night. Unfortunately, in these prisons he was unable to paint, due to the lack of facilities. It was only when he was transferred to Long Lartin Prison, in the latter part of 1987, that he was able to paint again. Here Aodh spent the best part of three years developing and enhancing his skill as an artist. In 1990, Aodh was ‘ghosted’ again to Bristol Prison before being returned to Parkhurst Prison, where he was reunited with his original art tutor, Peter Leath. It was during this period that Peter encouraged Aodh to experiment with different styles, resulting in his use of the pallet knife and the start of his love for abstract painting. A four-month transfer to Frankland Prison in 1991, where Aodh was able to paint was quickly followed by another transfer to Albany Prison where he was unable to paint. It was not until he was sent to Full Sutton Prison in 1993 that Aodh was again allowed to paint. An unsuccessful escape attempt in 1996 resulted in Aodh being sent to solitary confinement in Durham Prison. After a few months there, he was again transferred, this time to Whitemoor Prison, where he produced the last of his paintings in an English prison. By this stage Aodh was concentrating more on his abstract work, often using bedsheets as his medium. By 1998, the political landscape in Ireland had dramatically changed since the mid-1970s, when Aodh was captured. The repatriation of political prisoners in England to Ireland was high on the agenda. This resulted in Aodh and his comrades, spending the May holiday weekend in Belmarsh Prison before being sent to Portlaoise Prison, not far from Dublin. Just a week after being transferred from England to Ireland, the four men who were involved in the Balcombe Street Siege were allowed out of prison for a single day to attend a special Sinn Féin conference called to consider the Good Friday Agreement. They joined other prisoners released for the day from jails on both sides of the border in successfully backing calls for the conference to accept the Good Friday Agreement, the basis for the Peace Process. Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams went on to describe the four, because of their long incarceration, as “Our Nelson Mandelas”. It was under these terms that Aodh was later released from prison on 9th April 1999, ironically the 99th day of the year, to return to his native Donegal. Hugh Aodh Doherty’s website www.hughdoherty.ie  
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  • Large Irish Writers Charcoal Sketch

    €200.00
    Striking and large print of a drawing on charcoal depicting five Irish Literary behemoths-James Joyce,W.B Yeats ,Samuel Beckett,Brendan Behan & Sean O'Casey.There is some slight water staining on the bottom of the front as this was stored in the basement of a long closed Dublin pub but now gladly resurrected and reframed.   Dublin 90cm x 68cm
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  • 1978 Munster v All Blacks Programme Poster

    €200.00
    There are many chapters in Munster’s storied rugby journey but pride of place remains the game against the otherwise unbeaten New Zealanders on October 31, 1978.This is a beautifully presented, upsized reprographic of the front page of the match programme on that famous day./ 70cm x 60cm Limerick City There were some mighty matches between the Kiwis and Munster, most notably at the Mardyke in 1954 when the tourists edged home by 6-3 and again by the same margin at Thomond Park in 1963 while the teams also played a 3-3 draw at Musgrave Park in 1973. During that time, they resisted the best that Ireland, Ulster and Leinster (admittedly with fewer opportunities) could throw at them so this country was still waiting for any team to put one over on the All Blacks when Graham Mourie’s men arrived in Limerick on October 31st, 1978. There is always hope but in truth Munster supporters had little else to encourage them as the fateful day dawned. Whereas the New Zealanders had disposed of Cambridge University, Cardiff, West Wales and London Counties with comparative ease, Munster’s preparations had been confined to a couple of games in London where their level of performance, to put it mildly, was a long way short of what would be required to enjoy even a degree of respectability against the All Blacks. They were hammered by Middlesex County and scraped a draw with London Irish. Ever before those two games, things hadn’t been going according to plan. Tom Kiernan had coached Munster for three seasons in the mid-70s before being appointed Branch President, a role he duly completed at the end of the 1977/78 season.
    EA OF EMOTION: Munster’s players and supporters celebrate a famous victory.
    SEA OF EMOTION: Munster’s players and supporters celebrate a famous victory.
    However, when coach Des Barry resigned for personal reasons, Munster turned once again to Kiernan. Being the great Munster man that he was and remains, Tom was happy to oblige although as an extremely shrewd observer of the game, one also suspected that he spotted something special in this group of players that had escaped most peoples’ attention. He refused to be dismayed by what he saw in the games in London, instead regarding them as crucial in the build-up to the All Blacks encounter. He was, in fact, ahead of his time, as he laid his hands on video footage of the All Blacks games, something unheard of back in those days, nor was he averse to the idea of making changes in key positions. A major case in point was the introduction of London Irish loose-head prop Les White of whom little was known in Munster rugby circles but who convinced the coaching team he was the ideal man to fill a troublesome position. Kiernan was also being confronted by many other difficult issues. The team he envisaged taking the field against the tourists was composed of six players (Larry Moloney, Seamus Dennison, Gerry McLoughlin, Pat Whelan, Brendan Foley and Colm Tucker) based in Limerick, four (Greg Barrett, Jimmy Bowen, Moss Finn and Christy Cantillon) in Cork, four more (Donal Canniffe, Tony Ward, Moss Keane and Donal Spring) in Dublin and Les White who, according to Keane, “hailed from somewhere in England, at that time nobody knew where”.   Always bearing in mind that the game then was totally amateur and these guys worked for a living, for most people it would have been impossible to bring them all together on a regular basis for six weeks before the match. But the level of respect for Kiernan was so immense that the group would have walked on the proverbial bed of nails for him if he so requested. So they turned up every Wednesday in Fermoy — a kind of halfway house for the guys travelling from three different locations and over appreciable distances. Those sessions helped to forge a wonderful team spirit. After all, guys who had been slogging away at work only a short few hours previously would hardly make that kind of sacrifice unless they meant business. October 31, 1978 dawned wet and windy, prompting hope among the faithful that the conditions would suit Munster who could indulge in their traditional approach sometimes described rather vulgarly as “boot, bite and bollock” and, who knows, with the fanatical Thomond Park crowd cheering them on, anything could happen. Ironically, though, the wind and rain had given way to a clear, blue sky and altogether perfect conditions in good time for the kick-off. Surely, now, that was Munster’s last hope gone — but that didn’t deter more than 12,000 fans from making their way to Thomond Park and somehow finding a spot to view the action. The vantage points included hundreds seated on the 20-foot high boundary wall, others perched on the towering trees immediately outside the ground and some even watched from the windows of houses at the Ballynanty end that have since been demolished. The atmosphere was absolutely electric as the teams took the field, the All Blacks performed the Haka and the Welsh referee Corris Thomas got things under way. The first few skirmishes saw the teams sizing each other up before an incident that was to be recorded in song and story occurred, described here — with just the slightest touch of hyperbole! — by Terry McLean in his book ‘Mourie’s All Blacks’. “In only the fifth minute, Seamus Dennison, him the fellow that bore the number 13 jersey in the centre, was knocked down in a tackle. He came from the Garryowen club which might explain his subsequent actions — to join that club, so it has been said, one must walk barefooted over broken glass, charge naked through searing fires, run the severest gauntlets and, as a final test of manhood, prepare with unfaltering gaze to make a catch of the highest ball ever kicked while aware that at least eight thundering members of your own team are about to knock you down, trample all over you and into the bargain hiss nasty words at you because you forgot to cry out ‘Mark’. Moss Keane recalled the incident: “It was the hardest tackle I have ever seen and lifted the whole team. That was the moment we knew we could win the game.” Kiernan also acknowledged the importance of “The Tackle”.
    He said: “Tackling is as integral a part of rugby as is a majestic centre three-quarter break. There were two noteworthy tackles during the match by Seamus Dennison. He was injured in the first and I thought he might have to come off. But he repeated the tackle some minutes later.”
    Munster v All Blacks 1978: ‘We were facing a team of kamikaze tacklers’ Many years on, Stuart Wilson vividly recalled the Dennison tackles and spoke about them in remarkable detail and with commendable honesty: “The move involved me coming in from the blind side wing and it had been working very well on tour. It was a workable move and it was paying off so we just kept rolling it out. Against Munster, the gap opened up brilliantly as it was supposed to except that there was this little guy called Seamus Dennison sitting there in front of me. “He just basically smacked the living daylights out of me. I dusted myself off and thought, I don’t want to have to do that again. Ten minutes later, we called the same move again thinking we’d change it slightly but, no, it didn’t work and I got hammered again.” The game was 11 minutes old when the most famous try in the history of Munster rugby was scored. Tom Kiernan recalled: “It came from a great piece of anticipation by Bowen who in the first place had to run around his man to get to Ward’s kick ahead. He then beat two men and when finally tackled, managed to keep his balance and deliver the ball to Cantillon who went on to score. All of this was evidence of sharpness on Bowen’s part.” Very soon it would be 9-0. In the first five minutes, a towering garryowen by skipper Canniffe had exposed the vulnerability of the New Zealand rearguard under the high ball. They were to be examined once or twice more but it was from a long range but badly struck penalty attempt by Ward that full-back Brian McKechnie knocked on some 15 yards from his line and close to where Cantillon had touched down a few minutes earlier. You could sense White, Whelan, McLoughlin and co in the front five of the Munster scrum smacking their lips as they settled for the scrum. A quick, straight put-in by Canniffe, a well controlled heel, a smart pass by the scrum-half to Ward and the inevitability of a drop goal. And that’s exactly what happened. The All Blacks enjoyed the majority of forward possession but the harder they tried, the more they fell into the trap set by the wily Kiernan and so brilliantly carried out by every member of the Munster team. The tourists might have edged the line-out contest through Andy Haden and Frank Oliver but scrum-half Mark Donaldson endured a miserable afternoon as the Munster forwards poured through and buried him in the Thomond Park turf. As the minutes passed and the All Blacks became more and more unsure as to what to try next, the Thomond Park hordes chanted “Munster-Munster–Munster” to an ever increasing crescendo until with 12 minutes to go, the noise levels reached deafening proportions. And then ... a deep, probing kick by Ward put Wilson under further pressure. Eventually, he stumbled over the ball as it crossed the line and nervously conceded a five-metre scrum. The Munster heel was disrupted but the ruck was won, Tucker gained possession and slipped a lovely little pass to Ward whose gifted feet and speed of thought enabled him in a twinkle to drop a goal although surrounded by a swarm of black jerseys. So the game entered its final 10 minutes with the All Blacks needing three scores to win and, of course, that was never going to happen. Munster knew this, so, too, did the All Blacks. Stu Wilson admitted as much as he explained his part in Wardy’s second drop goal: “Tony Ward banged it down, it bounced a little bit, jigged here, jigged there, and I stumbled, fell over, and all of a sudden the heat was on me. They were good chasers. A kick is a kick — but if you have lots of good chasers on it, they make bad kicks look good. I looked up and realised — I’m not going to run out of here so I just dotted it down. I wasn’t going to run that ball back out at them because five of those mad guys were coming down the track at me and I’m thinking, I’m being hit by these guys all day and I’m looking after my body, thank you. Of course it was a five-yard scrum and Ward banged over another drop goal. That was it, there was the game”. The final whistle duly sounded with Munster 12 points ahead but the heroes of the hour still had to get off the field and reach the safety of the dressing room. Bodies were embraced, faces were kissed, backs were pummelled, you name it, the gauntlet had to be walked. Even the All Blacks seemed impressed with the sense of joy being released all about them. Andy Haden recalled “the sea of red supporters all over the pitch after the game, you could hardly get off for the wave of celebration that was going on. The whole of Thomond Park glowed in the warmth that someone had put one over on the Blacks.” Controversially, the All Blacks coach, Jack Gleeson (usually a man capable of accepting the good with the bad and who passed away of cancer within 12 months of the tour), in an unguarded (although possibly misunderstood) moment on the following day, let slip his innermost thoughts on the game. “We were up against a team of kamikaze tacklers,” he lamented. “We set out on this tour to play 15-man rugby but if teams were to adopt the Munster approach and do all they could to stop the All Blacks from playing an attacking game, then the tour and the game would suffer.” It was interpreted by the majority of observers as a rare piece of sour grapes from a group who had accepted the defeat in good spirit and it certainly did nothing to diminish Munster respect for the All Blacks and their proud rugby tradition.
    And Tom Kiernan and Andy Haden, rugby standard bearers of which their respective countries were justifiably proud, saw things in a similar light.
    “Jack’s comment was made in the context of the game and meant as a compliment,” Haden maintained. “Indeed, it was probably a little suggestion to his own side that perhaps we should imitate their efforts and emulate them in that department.” Tom Kiernan went along with this line of thought: “I thought he was actually paying a compliment to the Munster spirit. Kamikaze pilots were very brave men. That’s what I took out of that. I didn’t think it was a criticism of Munster.” And Stuart Wilson? “It was meant purely as a compliment. We had been travelling through the UK and winning all our games. We were playing a nice, open style. But we had never met a team that could get up in our faces and tackle us off the field. Every time you got the ball, you didn’t get one player tackling you, you got four. Kamikaze means people are willing to die for the cause and that was the way with every Munster man that day. Their strengths were that they were playing for Munster, that they had a home Thomond Park crowd and they took strength from the fact they were playing one of the best teams in the world.” You could rely on Terry McLean (famed New Zealand journalist) to be fair and sporting in his reaction to the Thomond Park defeat. Unlike Kiernan and Haden, he scorned Jack Gleeson’s “kamikaze” comment, stating that “it was a stern, severe criticism which wanted in fairness on two grounds. It did not sufficiently praise the spirit of Munster or the presence within the one team of 15 men who each emerged from the match much larger than life-size. Secondly, it was disingenuous or, more accurately, naive.” “Gleeson thought it sinful that Ward had not once passed the ball. It was worse, he said, that Munster had made aggressive defence the only arm of their attack. Now, what on earth, it could be asked, was Kiernan to do with his team? He held a fine hand with top trumps in Spring, Cantillon, Foley and Whelan in the forwards and Canniffe, Ward, Dennison, Bowen and Moloney in the backs. Tommy Kiernan wasn’t born yesterday. He played to the strength of his team and upon the suspected weaknesses of the All Blacks.” You could hardly be fairer than that – even if Graham Mourie himself in his 1983 autobiography wasn’t far behind when observing: “Munster were just too good. From the first time Stu Wilson was crashed to the ground as he entered the back line to the last time Mark Donaldson was thrown backwards as he ducked around the side of a maul. They were too good.” One of the nicest tributes of all came from a famous New Zealand photographer, Peter Bush. He covered numerous All Black tours, was close friends with most of their players and a canny one when it came to finding the ideal position from which to snap his pictures. He was the guy perched precariously on the pillars at the entrance to the pitch as the celebrations went on and which he described 20 years later in his book ‘Who Said It’s Only a Game?’
    “I climbed up on a gate at the end of the game to get this photo and in the middle of it all is Moss Keane, one of the great characters of Irish rugby, with an expression of absolute elation. The All Blacks lost 12-0 to a side that played with as much passion as I have ever seen on a rugby field. The great New Zealand prop Gary Knight said to me later: ‘We could have played them for a fortnight and we still wouldn’t have won’. I was doing a little radio piece after the game and got hold of Moss Keane and said ‘Moss, I wonder if ...’ and he said, ‘ho, ho, we beat you bastards’.
    “With that, he flung his arms around me and dragged me with him into the shower. I finally managed to disentangle myself and killed the tape. I didn’t mind really because it had been a wonderful day.” Dimensions :47cm x 57cm
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  • 1919 First Meeting of Dail Eireann at The Mansion House Print

    €200.00
    Unique print depicting the very first Dáil Eireann which took place at the Mansion House in Dublin on the 21st January 1919.
    53cm x 65cm.   Loughrea Co Galway
    First Dáil
    ← New assembly 2nd Dáil →
    Flag of Ireland.svg
    Overview
    Legislative body Dáil Éireann
    Jurisdiction Irish Republic
    Meeting place Mansion House, Dublin
    Term 21 January 1919 – 10 May 1921
    Election 1918 general election
    Government Government of the 1st Dáil
    Members 73
    Ceann Comhairle Cathal Brugha (1919) George Noble Plunkett(1919) Seán T. O'Kelly (1919–21)
    President of Dáil Éireann Cathal Brugha (1919)
    President of the Irish Republic Éamon de Valera (1919–21)
    Sessions
    1st 21 January 1919 – 10 May 1921
    The First Dáil (Irish: An Chéad Dáil) was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 1919 to 1921. It was the first meeting of the unicameral parliament of the revolutionary Irish Republic. In the December 1918 election to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Irish republican party Sinn Féin won a landslide victory in Ireland. In line with their manifesto, its MPs refused to take their seats, and on 21 January 1919 they founded a separate parliament in Dublin called Dáil Éireann ("Assembly of Ireland"). They declared Irish independence, ratifying the Proclamation of the Irish Republicthat had been issued in the 1916 Easter Rising, and adopted a provisional constitution. Its first meeting happened on the same day as one of the first engagements of what became the Irish War of Independence. Although the Dáil had not authorised any armed action, it became a "symbol of popular resistance and a source of legitimacy for fighting men in the guerrilla war that developed". The Dáil was outlawed by the British government in September 1919, and thereafter it met in secret. The First Dáil met 21 times and its main business was establishing the Irish Republic.It created the beginnings of an independent Irish government and state apparatus. Following the May 1921 elections, the First Dáil was succeeded by the Second Dáil of 1921–1922

    Background

    In 1918 Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and was represented in the British House of Commons by 105 MPs. From 1882, most Irish MPs were members of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) who strove in several Home Rule Bills to achieve self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom by constitutional means. This approach put the Government of Ireland Act 1914 on the statute book but its implementation was postponed with the outbreak of the World War I. In the meantime the more radical Sinn Féin party grew in strength. Sinn Féin's founder, Arthur Griffith, believed Irish nationalists should emulate the Hungarian nationalists who had gained partial independence from Austria. In 1867, led by Ferenc Deák, Hungarian representatives had boycotted the Imperial parliament in Vienna and unilaterally established their own legislature in Budapest. The Austrian government had eventually become reconciled to this new state of affairs. Members of Sinn Féin also, however, supported gaining independence by means of an armed uprising if necessary. In April 1916, during the First World War, Irish republicans launched an uprising against British rule in Ireland, called the Easter Rising. They proclaimed an Irish Republic. After a week of heavy fighting, mostly in Dublin, the rising was put down by British forces. About 3,500 people were taken prisoner by the British, many of whom had played no part in the Rising. Most of the Rising's leaders were executed. The rising, the British response, and the British attempt to introduce conscription in Ireland, led to greater public support for Sinn Féin and Irish independence. The party was also helped by the 1918 Representation of the People Act which increased the Irish electorate from around 700,000 to about two million. In the 1918 general election, Sinn Féin won 73 out of the 105 Irish seats in the House of Commons. Elections were held almost entirely under the 'first-past-the-post voting' system. In 25 constituencies, Sinn Féin won the seats unopposed. Unionists (including Ulster Unionist Labour Association) won 26 seats, all but three of which were in the six counties that today form Northern Ireland, and the IPP won only six (down from 84), all but one in Ulster. The Labour Party did not stand in the election, allowing the electorate to decide between home rule or a republic by having a clear choice between the two nationalist parties. The IPP won a smaller share of seats than votes due to the first-past-the-post system. Sinn Féin's manifesto had pledged to establish an Irish Republic by founding "a constituent assembly comprising persons chosen by Irish constituencies" which could then "speak and act in the name of the Irish people". Once elected the Sinn Féin MPs chose to follow through with their manifesto.

    First meeting

    The Mansion House, Dublin
    Cathal Brugha, the Dáil's first speaker and president
    Sinn Féin had held several meetings in early January to plan the first sitting of the Dáil. On 8 January, it publicly announced its intention to convene the assembly. On the night of 11 January, the Dublin Metropolitan Police raided Sinn Féin headquarters and seized drafts of the documents that would be issued at the assembly. As a result, the British administration was fully aware what was being planned. The first meeting of Dáil Éireann began at 3:30 pm on 21 January in the Round Room of the Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin. It lasted about two hours. The packed audience in the Round Room rose in acclaim for the members of the Dáil as they walked into the room, and many waved Irish tricolour flags. A tricolour was also displayed above the lectern. Among the audience were the Lord Mayor Laurence O'Neill and Maud Gonne. Scores of Irish and international journalists were reporting on the proceedings. Outside, Dawson Street was thronged with onlookers. Irish Volunteers controlled the crowds, and police were also present. Precautions had been taken in case the assembly was raided by the British authorities. A reception for British soldiers of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who had been prisoners of war in Germany, had ended shortly beforehand. Twenty-seven Sinn Féin MPs attended. Invitations had been sent to all elected MPs in Ireland, but the Unionists and Irish Parliamentary Party MPs declined to attend. The IPP's Thomas Harbison, MP for North East Tyrone, acknowledged the invitation but wrote he should "decline for obvious reasons". He expressed sympathy with the call for Ireland to have a hearing at the Paris Peace Conference. Sir Robert Henry Woods was the only unionist who declined rather than ignored his invitation.Sixty-nine Sinn Féin MPs had been elected (four of whom represented more than one constituency), but thirty-four were in prison, and eight others could not attend for various reasons. Those in prison were described as being "imprisoned by the foreigners" (fé ghlas ag Gallaibh).Michael Collins and Harry Boland were marked in the roll as i láthair (present), but the record was later amended to show that they were as láthair (absent). At the time, they were in England planning the escape of Éamon de Valera from Lincoln Prison, and did not wish to draw attention to their absence. Being a first and highly symbolic meeting, the proceedings of the Dáil were held wholly in the Irish language, although translations of the documents were also read out in English and French. George Noble Plunkett opened the session and nominated Cathal Brugha as acting Ceann Comhairle (chairman or speaker), which was accepted. Both actions "immediately associated the Dáil with the 1916 Rising, during which Brugha had been seriously wounded, and after which Plunkett’s son had been executed as a signatory to the famed Proclamation".Brugha then called upon Father Michael O'Flanagan to say a prayer.

    Declarations and constitution

    Cover page of the Declaration of Independence
    A number of short documents were then read out and adopted. These were the: These documents asserted that the Dáil was the parliament of a sovereign state called the "Irish Republic". With the Declaration of Independence, the Dáil ratified the Proclamation of the Irish Republic that had been issued in the 1916 Rising, and pledged "to make this declaration effective by every means". It stated that "the elected representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance". It also declared "foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right" and demanded British military withdrawal. Once the Declaration was read, Cathal Brugha said (in Irish): "Deputies, you understand from what is asserted in this Declaration that we are now done with England. Let the world know it and those who are concerned bear it in mind. For come what may now, whether it be death itself, the great deed is done". The Message to the Free Nations called for international recognition of Irish independence and for Ireland to be allowed to make its case at the Paris Peace Conference. It stated that "the existing state of war between Ireland and England can never be ended until Ireland is definitely evacuated by the armed forced of England". Although this could have been a "rhetorical flourish", it was the nearest the Dáil came to a declaration of war. The Dáil Constitution was a brief provisional constitution. It stated that the Dáil had "full powers to legislate" and would be composed of representatives "chosen by the people of Ireland from the present constituencies of the country". It established an executive government or Ministry (Aireacht) made up of a president (Príomh-Aire) chosen by the Dáil, and ministers of finance, home affairs, foreign affairs and defence. Cathal Brugha was elected as the first, temporary president.He would be succeeded, in April, by Éamon de Valera.

    Reactions

    The first meeting of the Dáil and its declaration of independence was headline news in Ireland and abroad. However, the press censorship that began during the First World War was continued by the British administration in Ireland after the war. The Press Censor forbade all Irish newspapers from publishing the Dáil's declarations. That evening, a British unionist view of events was printed in a newspaper. It said that the British Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, "Lord French, is today the master of Ireland. He alone [...] will decide upon the type of government the country is to have, and it is he rather than any member of the House of Commons, who will be the judge of political and industrial reforms". Lord French's observer at the meeting, George Moore, was impressed by its orderliness and told French that the Dáil represented "the general feeling in the country".The Irish Times, then the voice of the Unionist status quo, called the events both farcical and dangerous. Irish republicans, and many nationalist newspapers, saw the meeting as momentous and the beginning of "a new epoch".According to one observer: "It is difficult to convey the intensity of feeling which pervaded the Round Room, the feeling that great things were happening, even greater things impending, and that in looking around the room he saw a glimpse of the Ireland of the future". One American journalist was more accurate than most when he forecast that "The British government apparently intends to ignore the Sinn Fein republic until it undertakes to enforce laws that are in conflict with those established by the British; then the trouble is likely to begin".

    Irish War of Independence

    Members of the Irish Volunteers, a republican paramilitary organization, "believed that the election of the Dáil and its declaration of independence had given them the right to pursue the republic in the manner they saw fit". It began to refer to itself as the Irish Republican Army (IRA).The First Dáil was "a visible symbol of popular resistance and a source of legitimacy for fighting men in the guerrilla war that developed". On the same day as the Dáil's first meeting, two officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) were killed in an ambush in County Tipperary by members of the Irish Volunteers. The Volunteers seized the explosives the officers had been guarding. This action had not been authorised by the Irish Volunteer leadership nor by the Dáil. Although the Dáil and the Irish Volunteers had some overlapping membership, they were separate and neither controlled the other. After the founding of the Dáil, steps were taken to make the Volunteers the army of the new self-declared republic. On 31 January 1919 the Volunteers' official journal, An tÓglách ("The Volunteer"), stated that Ireland and England were at war, and that the founding of Dáil Éireann and its declaration of independence justified the Irish Volunteers in treating "the armed forces of the enemy – whether soldiers or policemen – exactly as a national army would treat the members of an invading army". In August 1920, the Dáil adopted a motion that the Irish Volunteers, "as a standing army", would swear allegiance to it and to the Republic. The Soloheadbeg ambush "and others like it that occurred during 1919 were not […] intended to be the first shots in a general war of independence, though that is what they turned out to be".It is thus seen as one of the first actions of the Irish War of Independence. The Dáil did not debate whether it would "accept a state of war" with, or declare war on, the United Kingdom until 11 March 1921. It was agreed unanimously to give President De Valera the power to accept or declare war at the most opportune time, but he never did so. In September 1919 the Dáil was declared illegal by the British authorities and thereafter met only intermittently and at various locations. The Dáil also set about attempting to secure de factoauthority for the Irish Republic throughout the country. This included the establishment of a parallel judicial system known as the Dáil Courts. The First Dáil held its last meeting on 10 May 1921. After elections on 24 May the Dáil was succeeded by the Second Dáil which sat for the first time on 16 August 1921.

    Prominent members

    Members of the First Dáil, 10 April 1919. 1st row (left to right): L. Ginnell, M. Collins, C. Brugha, A. Griffith, É. de Valera, Count Plunkett, E. MacNeill, W. T. Cosgrave and E. Blythe. 2nd row (l to r): P. J. Moloney, T. MacSwiney, R. Mulcahy, J. O'Doherty, S. O'Mahony, J. Dolan, J. McGuinness, P. O'Keefe, M. Staines, J. McGrath, B. Cusack, L. de Róiste, M. Colivet and M. O'Flanagan ((VP of Sinn Féin). 3rd row (l to r): P. Ward, A. McCabe, D. FitzGerald, J. Sweeny, R. Hayes, C. Collins, P. Ó Máille, J. O'Mara, B. O'Higgins, S. Burke and K. O'Higgins. 4th row (l to r): J. McDonagh and S. MacEntee. 5th row (l to r): P. Béaslaí, R. Barton and P. Galligan. 6th row (l to r): P. Shanahan and S. Etchingham.

    Legacy

    The First Dáil and the general election of 1918 came to occupy a central place in Irish republicanism and nationalism. Today the name Dáil Éireann is used for the lower house of the modern Oireachtas (parliament) of the Republic of Ireland. Successive Dála (plural for Dáil) continue to be numbered from the "First Dáil" convened in 1919. The current Dáil, elected in 2020, is accordingly the "33rd Dáil". The 1918 general election was the last time the whole island of Ireland voted as a unit until elections to the European Parliament over sixty years later. The landslide victory for Sinn Féin was seen by Irish republicans as an overwhelming endorsement of the principle of a united independent Ireland.Until recently republican paramilitary groups, such as the Provisional IRA, often claimed that their campaigns derived legitimacy from this 1918 mandate, and some still do. The First Dáil "created the beginnings of an independent Irish governmental and bureaucratic machine", and was a means by which "a formal constitution for the new state was created".It also "provided the personnel and the authority to conclude the articles of agreement with Britain and bring the war to an end". The Irish state has commemorated the founding of the First Dáil several times, as "the anniversary of when a constitutionally elected majority of MPs declared the right of the Irish people to have their own democratic state". Seán MacEntee, who died on 10 January 1984 at the age of 94, was the last surviving member of the First Dáil.
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  • Out of stock

    Bass On Draught Mirror

    €200.00
    35cm x 45cm  Dublin

    The former beer of choice of An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern,the Bass Ireland Brewery operated on the Glen Road  in West Belfast for 107 years until its closure in 2004.But despite its popularity, this ale would be the cause of bitter controversy in the 1930s as you can learn below.

    Founded in 1777 by William Bass in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England.The main brand was Bass Pale Ale, once the highest-selling beer in the UK.By 1877, Bass had become the largest brewery in the world, with an annual output of one million barrels.Its pale ale was exported throughout the British Empire, and the company's distinctive red triangle became the UK's first registered trade mark. In the early  1930s republicans in Dublin and elsewhere waged a campaign of intimidation against publicans who sold Bass ale, which involved violent tactics and grabbed headlines at home and further afield. This campaign occurred within a broader movement calling for the boycott of British goods in Ireland, spearheaded by the IRA. Bass was not alone a British product, but republicans took issue with Colonel John Gretton, who was chairman of the company and a Conservative politician in his day.

    In Britain,Ireland and the Second World War, Ian Woods notes that the republican newspaper An Phoblacht set the republican boycott of Bass in a broader context , noting that there should be “No British ales. No British sweets or chocolate. Shoulder to shoulder for a nationwide boycott of British goods. Fling back the challenge of the robber empire.”

    In late 1932, Irish newspapers began to report on a sustained campaign against Bass ale, which was not strictly confined to Dublin. On December 5th 1932, The Irish Times asked:

    Will there be free beer in the Irish Free State at the end of this week? The question is prompted by the orders that are said to have been given to publicans in Dublin towards the end of last week not to sell Bass after a specified date.

    The paper went on to claim that men visited Dublin pubs and told publicans “to remove display cards advertising Bass, to dispose of their stock within a week, and not to order any more of this ale, explaining that their instructions were given in furtherance of the campaign to boycott British goods.” The paper proclaimed a ‘War on English Beer’ in its headline. The same routine, of men visiting and threatening public houses, was reported to have happened in Cork.

    It was later reported that on November 25th young men had broken into the stores owned by Bass at Moore Lane and attempted to do damage to Bass property. When put before the courts, it was reported that the republicans claimed that “Colonel Gretton, the chairman of the company, was a bitter enemy of the Irish people” and that he “availed himself of every opportunity to vent his hate, and was an ardent supporter of the campaign of murder and pillage pursued by the Black and Tans.” Remarkably, there were cheers in court as the men were found not guilty, and it was noted that they had no intention of stealing from Bass, and the damage done to the premises amounted to less than £5.

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    A campaign of intimidation carried into January 1933, when pubs who were not following the boycott had their signs tarred, and several glass signs advertising the ale were smashed across the city. ‘BOYCOTT BRITISH GOODS’ was painted across several Bass advertisements in the city.

    Throughout 1933, there were numerous examples of republicans entering pubs and smashing the supply of Bass bottles behind the counter. This activity was not confined to Dublin,as this report from late August shows. It was noted that the men publicly stated that they belonged to the IRA.

    Irish Press. 28 August 1933.

    Irish Press. 28 August 1933.

    September appears to have been a particularly active period in the boycott, with Brian Hanley identifying Dublin, Tralee, Naas, Drogheda and Waterford among the places were publicans were targetted in his study The IRA: 1926-1936. One of the most interesting incidents occurring in Dun Laoghaire. There, newspapers reported that on September 4th 1933 “more than fifty young men marched through the streets” before raiding the premises of Michael Moynihan, a local publican. Bottles of Bass were flung onto the roadway and advertisements destroyed. Five young men were apprehended for their role in the disturbances, and a series of court cases nationwide would insure that the Bass boycott was one of the big stories of September 1933.

    The young men arrested in Dun Laoghaire refused to give their name or any information to the police, and on September 8th events at the Dublin District Court led to police baton charging crowds. The Irish Times reported that about fifty supporters of the young men gathered outside the court with placards such as ‘Irish Goods for Irish People’, and inside the court a cry of ‘Up The Republic!’ led to the judge slamming the young men, who told him they did not recognise his court. The night before had seen some anti-Bass activity in the city, with the smashing of Bass signs at Burgh Quay. This came after attacks on pubs at Lincoln Place and Chancery Street. It wasn’t long before Mountjoy and other prisons began to home some of those involved in the Boycott Bass campaign, which the state was by now eager to suppress.

    Boycott protest image from Lynn Doyle’s Spirit Of Ireland (1936). (I recently found this image posted to Twitter but welcome the source)

    An undated image of a demonstration to boycott British goods. Credit: http://irishmemory.blogspot.ie/

    This dramatic court appearance was followed by similar scenes in Kilmainham, where twelve men were brought before the courts for a raid on the Dead Man’s Pub, near to Palmerstown in West Dublin. Almost all in their 20s, these men mostly gave addresses in Clondalkin. Their court case was interesting as charges of kidnapping were put forward, as Michael Murray claimed the men had driven him to the Featherbed mountain. By this stage, other Bass prisoners had begun a hungerstrike, and while a lack of evidence allowed the men to go free, heavy fines were handed out to an individual who the judge was certain had been involved.

    The decision to go on hungerstrike brought considerable attention on prisoners in Mountjoy, and Maud Gonne MacBride spoke to the media on their behalf, telling the Irish Press on September 18th that political treatment was sought by the men. This strike had begun over a week previously on the 10th, and by the 18th it was understood that nine young men were involved. Yet by late September, it was evident the campaign was slowing down, particularly in Dublin.

    The controversy around the boycott Bass campaign featured in Dáil debates on several occasions. In late September Eamonn O’Neill T.D noted that he believed such attacks were being allowed to be carried out “with a certain sort of connivance from the Government opposite”, saying:

    I suppose the Minister is aware that this campaign against Bass, the destruction of full bottles of Bass, the destruction of Bass signs and the disfigurement of premises which Messrs. Bass hold has been proclaimed by certain bodies to be a national campaign in furtherance of the “Boycott British Goods” policy. I put it to the Minister that the compensation charges in respect of such claims should be made a national charge as it is proclaimed to be a national campaign and should not be placed on the overburdened taxpayers in the towns in which these terrible outrages are allowed to take place with a certain sort of connivance from the Government opposite.

    Another contribution in the Dáil worth quoting came from Daniel Morrissey T.D, perhaps a Smithwicks man, who felt it necessary to say that we were producing “an ale that can compare favourably with any ale produced elsewhere” while condemning the actions of those targeting publicans:

    I want to say that so far as I am concerned I have no brief good, bad, or indifferent, for Bass’s ale. We are producing in this country at the moment—and I am stating this quite frankly as one who has a little experience of it—an ale that can compare favourably with any ale produced elsewhere. But let us be quite clear that if we are going to have tariffs or embargoes, no tariffs or embargoes can be issued or given effect to in this country by any person, any group of persons, or any organisation other than the Government elected by the people of the country.

    Tim Pat Coogan claims in his history of the IRA that this boycott brought the republican movement into conflict with the Army Comrades Association, later popularly known as the ‘Blueshirts’. He claims that following attacks in Dublin in December 1932, “the Dublin vitners appealed to the ACA for protection and shipments of Bass were guarded by bodyguards of ACA without further incident.” Yet it is undeniable there were many incidents of intimidation against suppliers and deliverers of the product into 1933.

    Not all republicans believed the ‘Boycott Bass’ campaign had been worthwhile. Patrick Byrne, who would later become secretary within the Republican Congress group, later wrote that this was a time when there were seemingly bigger issues, like mass unemployment and labour disputes in Belfast, yet:

    In this situation, while the revolution was being served up on a plate in Belfast, what was the IRA leadership doing? Organising a ‘Boycott Bass’ Campaign. Because of some disparaging remarks the Bass boss, Colonel Gretton, was reported to have made about the Irish, some IRA leaders took umbrage and sent units out onto the streets of Dublin and elsewhere to raid pubs, terrify the customers, and destroy perfectly good stocks of bottled Bass, an activity in which I regret to say I was engaged.

    Historian Brian Hanley has noted by late 1933 “there was little effort to boycott anything except Bass and the desperation of the IRA in hoping violence would revive the campaign was in fact an admission of its failure. At the 1934 convention the campaign was quietly abandoned.”

    Interestingly, this wasn’t the last time republicans would threaten Bass. In 1986 The Irish Times reported that Bass and Guinness were both threatened on the basis that they were supplying to British Army bases and RUC stations, on the basis of providing a service to security forces.

    Origins : Co Galway

    Dimensions:35 cm x 45cm

     
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  • Powers”Three Swallow” Whiskey Advertising Print

    €200.00
    40cm x 80cm. Dublin The original distillery, which had an output of about 6,000 gallons in its first year of operation, initially traded as James Power and Son, but by 1822 had become John Power & Son,and had moved to a new premises at John’s Lane, a side street off Thomas Street. At the time the distillery had three pot stills, though only one, a 500-gallon still is thought to have been in use. Following reform of the distilling laws in 1823, the distillery expanded rapidly. In 1827, production was reported at 160,270 gallons,and by 1833 had grown to 300,000 gallons per annum. As the distillery grew, so too did the stature of the family. In 1841, John Power, grandson of the founder was awarded a baronet, a hereditary title. In 1855, his son Sir James Power, laid the foundation stone for the O’Connell Monument, and in 1859 became High Sheriff of Dublin. In 1871, the distillery was expanded and rebuilt in the Victorian style, becoming one of the most impressive sights in Dublin.After expansion, output at the distillery rose to 700,000 gallons per annum, and by the 1880s, had reached about 900,000 gallons per annum, at which point the distillery covered over six acres of central Dublin, and had a staff of about 300 people.
    The Still House at John’s Lane Distillery, as it looked when Alfred Barnard visited in the 1800s.
      During this period, when the Dublin whiskey distilleries were amongst the largest in the world, the family run firms of John Powers, along with John Jameson, William Jameson, and George Roe, (collectively known as the “Big Four”) came to dominate the Irish distilling landscape, introducing several innovations. In 1886, John Power & Son began bottling their own whiskey, rather than following the practice customary at the time, of selling whiskey directly to merchants and bonders who would bottle it themselves. They were the first Dublin distillery to do so, and one of the first in the world.A gold label adorned each bottle and it was from these that the whiskey got the name Powers Gold Label. When Alfred Barnard, the British historian visited John’s Lane in the late 1880s, he noted the elegance and cleanliness of the buildings, and the modernity of the distillery, describing it as “about as complete a work as it is possible to find anywhere”. At the time of his visit, the distillery was home to five pot stills, two of which with capacities of 25,000 gallons, were amongst the largest ever built.In addition, Barnard was high in his praise for Powers whiskey, noting:”The old make, which we drank with our luncheon was delicious and finer than anything we had hitherto tasted.It was as perfect in flavour, and as pronounced in the ancient aroma of Irish Whiskey so dear to to the hearts of connoisseurs,as one could possibly desire and we found a small flask of it very useful afterwards on our travels.” The last member of the family to sit on the board was Sir Thomas Talbot Power,who died in 1930,and with him the Power’s Baronetcy. However, ownership remained in the family until 1966, and several descendants of his sisters remained at work with the company until recent times. In 1961, a Coffey still was installed in John’s Lane Distillery, allowing the production of vodka and gin, in addition to the testing of grain whiskey for use in blended whiskey. This was a notable departure for the firm, as for many years the big Dublin distilling dynasties had shunned the use of Coffey stills, questioning if their output, grain whiskey could even be termed whiskey. However, with many of the Irish distilleries having closed in the early 20th century in part due to their failure to embrace a change in consumer preference towards blended whiskey, Powers were instrumental in convincing the remaining Irish distilleries to reconsider their stance on blended whiskey. In 1966, with the Irish whiskey industry still struggling following Prohibition in the United States, the Anglo-Irish Trade War and the rise of competition from Scotch whiskey, John Powers & Son joined forces with the only other remaining distillers in the Irish Republic, the Cork Distilleries Company and their Dublin rivals John Jameson & Son, to form Irish Distillers. Soon after, in a bold move, Irish Distillers decided to close all of their existing distilleries, and to consolidate production at a new purpose-built facility in Midleton (the New Midleton Distillery) alongside their existing Old Midleton Distillery. The new distillery opened in 1975, and a year later, production ceased at John’s Lane Distillery and began anew in Cork, with Powers Gold Label and many other Irish whiskeys reformulated from single pot stills whiskeys to blends. In 1989, Irish Distillers itself became a subsidiary of Pernod-Ricard following a friendly takeover.Since the closure of the John’s Lane distillery, many of the distillery buildings were demolished. However, some of the buildings have been incorporated into the National College of Art and Design, and are now protected structures. In addition, three of the distillery’s pot stills were saved and now located in the college’s Red Square.     Origins: Co Waterford Dimensions :40cm x 77cm
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  • Old Pub showcard “Todays cigarette is a Bristol “

    €200.00
    Charming old pub showcard dating to approx 1950 and beautifully framed making it a lovely collectors item-todays cigarette is a Bristol (20 for 2 shillings and 7 pence ) 50cm x 60cm W.D & H.O. Wills was a British tobacco importer and manufacturer formed in Bristol, England and had another major factory in Dublin,It was the first UK company to mass-produce cigarettes. It was one of the founding companies of Imperial Tobacco along with John Player & Sons. The company was founded in 1786 and went by various names before 1830 when it became W.D. & H.O. Wills. Tobacco was processed and sold under several brand names, some of which were still used by Imperial Tobacco until the second half of the 20th century. The company pioneered the use of cigarette cards within their packaging. Many of the buildings in Bristol and other cities around the United Kingdom still exist with several being converted to residential use.  
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  • Original W.D & H.O Wills Bristol & Dublin “Trumps” Cigarette Showcard Advert

    €200.00
    Original and classic  Gold Flake are Trumps Show Card advert. 58cm x 44cm  Bray Co Wicklow Starting off as a cigarette with a heritage, Gold Flake was produced by the Bristol and Dublin factories  of W.D. & H.O. Wills, from 1901 as part of Imperial Tobacco. "Gold flake" refers to cigarettes made using bright rich golden tobacco. After 1912, the biggest change in the brand was in 1971 with the introduction of Gold Flake Kings, followed up with the launch of Gold Flake Kings Lights in 1999 The initial ads positioned the cigarette as a companion.  It was meant to be a cigarette for the elite and the rich –  It did not differentiate itself specifically from other brands. Advertising emphasized this comparison to gold. The statement "For the gracious people" summed the core of the brand. After the introduction of lights as a category, the brand introduced the positioning of Honeydew Smooth – giving the brand a recognizable differentiator, this positioning was backed by the dew drop symbol. With smoothness being the biggest claim the brand used symbols like the silk scarf, feather, paint brush, violin, marble vase, hour glass, and shell as visuals to reiterate and associate back with smoothness. After this, the brand reinvented its image and positioning with a new campaign that moved away from the well-established Honeydew campaign. This was the Go smooth campaign. The campaign was successful in connecting to the Gold Flake consumer and retaining the long-standing loyalty.Many poster advertisements have been made for Gold Flake cigarettes,including the Gold Flake are Trumps as seen here.In the early 1900s, two characters by the names of "Mr Gold" and "Mr Flake" were introduced to promote the Gold Flake brand in the United Kingdom. The characters were used for about 30 years and were popular, but it did not help the sales of the brand and Gold Flake was discontinued for a short period of time.From a marketing perspective ,Gold flake  still differentiated itself on the purity and quality of its experience. The brand stood for a celebratory attitude.   
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  • Players Please Navy Cut Cigarettes Advert

    €200.00
    Original,Interesting and rather furtive Players Please Navy Cut Cigarette Show Card Advert. 65cm x 54cm Navy cut were  a brand of cigarettes manufactured by Imperial Brands –formerly John Player & Sons– in Nottingham, England.The brand became "Player's Navy Cut". They were particularly popular in Britain,Ireland and Germany in the late 19th century and early part of the 20th century, but were later produced in the United States. The packet has the distinctive logo of a smoking sailor in a 'Navy Cut' cap. The phrase "Navy Cut" is according to Player's adverts to originate from the habit of sailors taking a mixture of tobacco leaves and binding them with string or twine. The tobacco would then mature under pressure and the sailor could then dispense the tobacco by slicing off a "cut".The product is also available in pipe tobacco form. The cigarettes were available in tins and the original cardboard container was a four sided tray of cigarettes that slid out from a covering like a classic matchbox. The next design had fold in ends so that the cigarettes could be seen or dispensed without sliding out the tray. In the 1950s the packaging moved to the flip top design like most brands.

    Enamelled metal box for 1 ounce of tobacco
    The image of the sailor was known as "Hero" because of the name on his hat band. It was first used in 1883 and the lifebuoy was added five years later. The sailor images were an 1891 artists concept registered for Chester-based William Parkins and Co for their "Jack Glory" brand.Behind the sailor are two ships. The one on the left is thought to be HMS Britannia and the one on the right HMS Dreadnought or HMS Hero. As time went by the image of the sailor changed as it sometimes had a beard and other times he was clean shaven. In 1927 "Hero" was standardised on a 1905 version. As part of the 1927 marketing campaign John Player and Sons commissioned an oil painting Head of a Sailor by Arthur David McCormick.The Player's Hero logo was thought to contribute to the cigarettes popularity in the 20s and 30s when competitor W.D. & H.O. Wills tried to create a similar image. Unlike Craven A, Navy Cut was intended to have a unisex appeal. Advertisements referred to "the appeal to Eve's fair daughters" and lines like "Men may come and Men may go".
    WWII cigarette packets exhibited at Monmouth Regimental Museumin 2012
    Hero is thought to have originally meant to indicate traditional British values, but his masculinity appealed directly to men and as a potential uncle figure for younger women. One slogan written inside the packet was "It's the tobacco that counts" and another was "Player's Please" which was said to appeal to the perceived desire of the population to be included in the mass market. The slogan was so well known that it was sufficient in a shop to get a packet of this brand. Player's Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Players and two thirds of these was branded as Players Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Players sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London. The popularity of the brand was mostly amongst the middle class and in the South of England. While it was smoked in the north, other brands were locally more popular. The brand was discontinued in the UK in 2016. Origins : Co Down Dimensions : 56cm x 46cm  5kg
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  • Corbetts Liqueur Irish Whiskey Fox Hunting Print

    €200.00
    Corbetts Liqueur Irish Whiskey is a long defunct brand that was distilled in Coleraine Co Antrim.This delightful and quaint advert depicts the thrills and spills of a hard  days hunting which was inevitably punctuated by plenty of swigs from whiskey containing hip flasks. 45cm x 55cm  Ballymena Co Antrim
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  • Ah…thats Bass Dubliners Advert

    €200.00
    57cm x 75cm   Dublin The Dubliners were quite simply one of the most famous Irish folk bands of all time.Founded in 1962,they enjoyed a 50 year career with the success of the band centred on their two lead singers,Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew.They garnered massive international acclaim with their lively Irish folk songs,traditional street ballads and instrumentals eventually crossing over to mainstream culture by appearing on Top of the Pops in 1967 with "Seven Drunken Nights" which sold over 250000 singles in the UK alone.Later a number of collaborations with the Pogues saw them enter the UK singles charts again on another 2 occasions.Instrumental in popularising Irish folk music abroad ,they influenced many generations of Irish bands and covers of Irish ballads such as Raglan Road and the Auld Triangle by Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew tend to be regarded as definitive versions.They also enjoyed a hard drinking and partying image and this advertising collaboration with Bass Ales must be seen as the perfect fit in terms of a target audience !  
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  • 1903 All Ireland Hurling Final Cork v Kilkenny B&W Framed Photo

    €200.00
    58cm x 67cm    Urlingford Co Kilkenny Unique,large photograph taken of a goalmouth scene during the 1903 hurling final between Cork(represented by Blackrock) and Kilkenny (Three Castles) at Dungarvan Co Waterford.The final result was an emphatic win for the Corkmen  8-9 to 0-8.The game was played with 17 players aside and it was not until 1913 that teams were reduced to the present day 15 a side.The goalposts which can be clearly seen in the photo were changed to the uprights format with crossbar in 1910 which are in use up to the present time.      
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    1936 All Ireland Hurling Champions Limerick En route to America

    €200.00
    Extremely rare photograph of the 1936 Limerick Hurlers as they embarked on a tour of the USA after winning the All Ireland. This photo was taken on board a transatlantic liner shows a very happy group setting sail for America where they would be feted as was customary for reigning All Ireland champions. 53cm x 65cm   Castleconnell Co Limerick
    In 1936, the Limerick GAA hurlers took on a New York team at Yankee Stadium.
    British Pathe has shared this amazing footage of the Limerick GAA hurling team taking on the New York-based hurling team on the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium in 1936. The historic footage, which unfortunately does not include sound, features the Limerick hurling team posing as a group on the pitch, as well as longshots of the match and the crowds in the grandstands.British Pathe noted that M. Mackey and T. Ryan scored for Limerick, and the final score was 16 points to 9 points, with Limerick as the victors.
     
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  • 1973 GAA Allstars Framed Poster(Original Version)

    €200.00
    Rare GAA Allstars Poster.In 1973 Cork were victorious in Football and Limerick won the Hurling . 90cm x 60cm  Limerick City  

    1973 Hurling Allstars

    Pos. Player Team Appearances Rationale
    GK Colours of Kilkenny.svg Noel Skehan Kilkenny 2 "For his courageous defiance, his agility and trustworthiness making him the kind of goalkeeper that any player would be happy to have behind him."
    RCB Colours of Kilkenny.svg Phil "Fan" Larkin Kilkenny 1 "For his dependability in defence, which combines with his natural hurling skill to establish him as one of the great corner backs of today."
    FB Colours of Leinster Council.svg Pat Hartigan Limerick 3 "For his undiminished skill and dependability in a very demanding position where quite often brawn is substituted for hurling artistry."
    LCB Colours of Leinster Council.svg Jim O'Brien Limerick 1 "For his rare bravery and mobility: for the all-round splender of his contribution to Limerick's much-delayed return to championship honours."
    RWB Colours of Wexford.svg Colm Doran Wexford 1 "For his alertness and sense of judgement, for the crispness of his stroke which played such a sizeable part in regaining the National League title for his county."
    CB Colours of Kilkenny.svg Pat Henderson Kilkenny 1 "For his sheer skill and obstinacy in defence, his tenacious approach and the devotion he continues to give to the game."
    LWB Colours of Leinster Council.svg Seán Foley Limerick 1 "For the fervour he brings to all facets of hurling, and particularly for his dedicated half-back play which contributed so much to Limerick's 1973 successes."
    MD Colours of Kilkenny.svg Liam O'Brien Kilkenny 1 "For his artistic stick-work which he has demonstrated with increasing regularity, and for establishing himself as one of the most elegant and energetic midfielders of recent times."
    MD Colours of Leinster Council.svg Richie Bennis Limerick 1 "For the level-headedness he has so frequently shown in the tightest of situations and for his exceptionally high rate of scoring."
    RWF Colours of Roscommon.svg Francis Loughnane Tipperary 3 "For his incisive intelligent running which so often splits opposing defences: for the remarkable consistency and accuracy of his marksmanship."
    CF Colours of Kilkenny.svg Pat Delaney Kilkenny 2 "For highlighting just how vigorous play can be totally fair, particularly during his famous attacks towards the opposing goal."
    LWF Colours of Leinster Council.svg Éamonn Grimes Limerick 1 "For his seemingly limitless energy and his desire to work all over the field: qualities which have made him a natural leader and a high scorer."
    RCF Colours of Wexford.svg Martin Quigley Wexford 1 "For the wide range of his playing skills, his constancy of purpose and his obvious versatility."
    FF Colours of Kilkenny.svg Kieran Purcell Kilkenny 1 "For the out-and-out hard work he puts into the game. For his power of striking and his adaptability in attack."
    LCF Colours of Kilkenny.svg Eddie Keher Kilkenny 3 "For his enormously successful scoring record, his fluency of stroke and his accurate passing which create so many chances for his team mates."
    Pos. Player Team Appearances
    GK Colours of Cork.svg Billy Morgan Cork 1
    RCB Colours of Cork.svg Frank Cogan Cork 1
    FB Colours of Offaly.svg Mick Ryan Offaly 2
    LCB Colours of Cork.svg Brian Murphy Cork 1
    RWB Colours of Galway.svg Liam O'Neill Galway 1
    CB Colours of Galway.svg Tommy Joe Gilmore Galway 2
    LWB Colours of Cork.svg Kevin Jer O'Sullivan Cork 2
    MD Colours of Leitrim.svg John O'Keeffe Kerry 1
    MD Colours of Cork.svg Dinny Long Cork 1
    RWF Colours of Offaly.svg Johnny Cooney Offaly 2
    CF Colours of Offaly.svg Kevin Kilmurray Offaly 2
    LWF Colours of Galway.svg Liam Sammon Galway 2
    RCF Colours of Cork.svg Jimmy Barry-Murphy Cork 1
    FF Colours of Cork.svg Ray Cummins Cork 2
    LCF Colours of Cork.svg Anthony McGurk Derry 1
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Irish Pub at Home & Abroad

The Pub has been at the forefront and epicentre of Irish life for hundreds of years. Often humble but always unpretentious, it has served many and varied functions.  A place where strangers become friends and friendships are solidified. A refuge from the stresses of everyday life, the headquarters of local life.

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