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  •

    Vintage Cooper’s Sheep Dip Advert- Agent; Mrs Margaret Hayes Ironmongers Portumna Co Galway

    €90.00
    45cm x 35cm  
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  • Vintage Advert for the New Chevrolet Motor car (Agent P Flannery’s Nenagh Co Tipperary)

    €100.00
    7Vintage advert for the 4 and 3 Seater Chevrolet (Agent ;The North Tipperary Motor Company P Flannery 6 & 7 McDonagh St Nenagh Co Tipperary).The 4 seater delivered complete cost £210 with the 3 seater English Body costing a heftier £280. 33cm x 44cm   Nenagh Co Tipperary In November 3, 1911, Swiss race car driver and automotive engineer Louis Chevrolet co-founded the "Chevrolet Motor Company" in Detroit with William C. Durant and investment partners William Little (maker of the Little automobile), former Buick owner James H. Whiting,[6] Dr. Edwin R. Campbell (son-in-law of Durant) and in 1912 R. S. McLaughlin CEO of General Motors in Canada. Durant was cast out from the management of General Motors in 1910, a company which he had founded in 1908. In 1904 he had taken over the Flint Wagon Works and Buick Motor Company of Flint, Michigan. He also incorporated the Mason and Little companies. As head of Buick, Durant had hired Louis Chevrolet to drive Buicks in promotional races. Durant planned to use Chevrolet's reputation as a racer as the foundation for his new automobile company. The first factory location was in Flint, Michigan at the corner of Wilcox and Kearsley Street, now known as "Chevy Commons" at coordinates 43.00863°N 83.70991°W, along the Flint River, across the street from Kettering University. Actual design work for the first Chevy, the costly Series C Classic Six, was drawn up by Etienne Planche, following instructions from Louis. The first C prototype was ready months before Chevrolet was actually incorporated. However the first actual production wasn't until the 1913 model. So in essence there were no 1911 or 1912 production models, only the 1 pre-production model was made and fine tuned throughout the early part of 1912. Then in the fall of that year the new 1913 model was introduced at the New York auto show.
    Chevrolet plant in Tarrytown, NY, c. 1918
    Chevrolet first used the "bowtie emblem" logo in 1914 on the H series models (Royal Mail and Baby Grand) and The L Series Model (Light Six). It may have been designed from wallpaper Durant once saw in a French hotel room.More recent research by historian Ken Kaufmann presents a case that the logo is based on a logo of the "Coalettes" coal company.[10][11] An example of this logo as it appeared in an advertisement for Coalettes appeared in the Atlanta Constitution on November 12, 1911.Others claim that the design was a stylized Swiss cross, in tribute to the homeland of Chevrolet's parents. Over time, Chevrolet would use several different iterations of the bowtie logo at the same time, often using blue for passenger cars, gold for trucks, and an outline (often in red) for cars that had performance packages. Chevrolet eventually unified all vehicle models with the gold bowtie in 2004, for both brand cohesion as well as to differentiate itself from Ford (with its blue oval logo) and Toyota (who has often used red for its imaging), its two primary domestic rivals.
    1929 Chevrolet Firebrigade, Porto
    Louis Chevrolet had differences with Durant over design and in 1914 sold Durant his share in the company. By 1916, Chevrolet was profitable enough with successful sales of the cheaper Series 490 to allow Durant to repurchase a controlling interest in General Motors. After the deal was completed in 1917, Durant became president of General Motors, and Chevrolet was merged into GM as a separate division. In 1919, Chevrolet's factories were located at Flint, Michigan; branch assembly locations were sited in Tarrytown, N.Y., Norwood, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri, Oakland, California, Ft. Worth, Texas, and Oshawa, Ontario General Motors of Canada Limited. McLaughlin's were given GM Corporation stock for the proprietorship of their Company article September 23, 1933 Financial Post page 9.In the 1918 model year, Chevrolet introduced the Series D, a V8-powered model in four-passenger roadster and five-passenger tourer models. Sales were poor and it was dropped in 1919. Beginning also in 1919, GMC commercial grade trucks were rebranded as Chevrolet, and using the same chassis of Chevrolet passenger cars and building light-duty trucks. GMC commercial grade trucks were also rebranded as Chevrolet commercial grade trucks, sharing an almost identical appearance with GMC products.
    1946 Chevrolet Pickup
    1941 GMC Model 9314
    1919 GMC Tanker
    1920 Chevrolet tow truck
    Chevrolet continued into the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s competing with Ford, and after the Chrysler Corporation formed Plymouth in 1928, Plymouth, Ford, and Chevrolet were known as the "Low-priced three".[16] In 1929 they introduced the famous "Stovebolt" overhead-valve inline six-cylinder engine, giving Chevrolet a marketing edge over Ford, which was still offering a lone flathead four ("A Six at the price of a Four"). In 1933 Chevrolet launched the Standard Six, which was advertised in the United States as the cheapest six-cylinder car on sale.[17] Chevrolet had a great influence on the American automobile market during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1953 it produced the Corvette, a two-seater sports car with a fiberglass body. In 1957 Chevy introduced its first fuel injected engine,[18] the Rochester Ramjet option on Corvette and passenger cars, priced at $484.[19] In 1960 it introduced the Corvair, with a rear-mounted air-cooled engine. In 1963 one out of every ten cars sold in the United States was a Chevrolet.[20]
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  • Irish Hospital Sweepstakes Vintage Showcard

    €100.00
    Vintage showcard for the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes selling at 2 shillings & 6 pence for a quarter share and full tickets for 10 shillings a piece. Dublin  34cm x 29cm The Irish Hospital Sweepstake was a lottery established in the Irish Free State in 1930 as the Irish Free State Hospitals' Sweepstake to finance hospitals. It is generally referred to as the Irish Sweepstake, frequently abbreviated to Irish Sweeps or Irish Sweep. The Public Charitable Hospitals (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1930 was the act that established the lottery; as this act expired in 1934, in accordance with its terms, the Public Hospitals Acts were the legislative basis for the scheme thereafter. The main organisers were Richard Duggan, Captain Spencer Freeman and Joe McGrath. Duggan was a well known Dublin bookmaker who had organised a number of sweepstakes in the decade prior to setting up the Hospitals' Sweepstake. Captain Freeman was a Welsh-born engineer and former captain in the British Army. After the Constitution of Ireland was enacted in 1937, the name Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake was adopted. The sweepstake was established because there was a need for investment in hospitals and medical services and the public finances were unable to meet this expense at the time. As the people of Ireland were unable to raise sufficient funds, because of the low population, a significant amount of the funds were raised in the United Kingdom and United States, often among the emigrant Irish. Potentially winning tickets were drawn from rotating drums, usually by nurses in uniform. Each such ticket was assigned to a horse expected to run in one of several horse races, including the Cambridgeshire Handicap, Derby and Grand National. Tickets that drew the favourite horses thus stood a higher likelihood of winning and a series of winning horses had to be chosen on the accumulator system, allowing for enormous prizes.
    F. F. Warren, the engineer who designed the mixing drums from which sweepstake tickets were drawn
    The original sweepstake draws were held at The Mansion House, Dublin on 19 May 1939 under the supervision of the Chief Commissioner of Police, and were moved to the more permanent fixture at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Ballsbridge later in 1940. The Adelaide Hospital in Dublin was the only hospital at the time not to accept money from the Hospitals Trust, as the governors disapproved of sweepstakes. From the 1960s onwards, revenues declined. The offices were moved to Lotamore House in Cork. Although giving the appearance of a public charitable lottery, with nurses featured prominently in the advertising and drawings, the Sweepstake was in fact a private for-profit lottery company, and the owners were paid substantial dividends from the profits. Fortune Magazine described it as "a private company run for profit and its handful of stockholders have used their earnings from the sweepstakes to build a group of industrial enterprises that loom quite large in the modest Irish economy. Waterford Glass, Irish Glass Bottle Company and many other new Irish companies were financed by money from this enterprise and up to 5,000 people were given jobs."[3] By his death in 1966, Joe McGrath had interests in the racing industry, and held the Renault dealership for Ireland besides large financial and property assets. He was known throughout Ireland for his tough business attitude but also by his generous spirit.At that time, Ireland was still one of the poorer countries in Europe; he believed in investment in Ireland. His home, Cabinteely House, was donated to the state in 1986. The house and the surrounding park are now in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council who have invested in restoring and maintaining the house and grounds as a public park. In 1986, the Irish government created a new public lottery, and the company failed to secure the new contract to manage it. The final sweepstake was held in January 1986 and the company was unsuccessful for a licence bid for the Irish National Lottery, which was won by An Post later that year. The company went into voluntary liquidation in March 1987. The majority of workers did not have a pension scheme but the sweepstake had fed many families during lean times and was regarded as a safe job.The Public Hospitals (Amendment) Act, 1990 was enacted for the orderly winding up of the scheme which had by then almost £500,000 in unclaimed prizes and accrued interest. A collection of advertising material relating to the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes is among the Special Collections of National Irish Visual Arts Library. At the time of the Sweepstake's inception, lotteries were generally illegal in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In the absence of other readily available lotteries, the Irish Sweeps became popular. Even though tickets were illegal outside Ireland, millions were sold in the US and Great Britain. How many of these tickets failed to make it back for the drawing is unknown. The United States Customs Service alone confiscated and destroyed several million counterfoils from shipments being returned to Ireland. In the UK, the sweepstakes caused some strain in Anglo-Irish relations, and the Betting and Lotteries Act 1934 was passed by the parliament of the UK to prevent export and import of lottery related materials. The United States Congress had outlawed the use of the US Postal Service for lottery purposes in 1890. A thriving black market sprang up for tickets in both jurisdictions. From the 1950s onwards, as the American, British and Canadian governments relaxed their attitudes towards this form of gambling, and went into the lottery business themselves, the Irish Sweeps, never legal in the United States,declined in popularity. Origins: Co Galway Dimensions :39cm x 31cm

    The Irish Hospitals Sweepstake was established because there was a need for investment in hospitals and medical services and the public finances were unable to meet this expense at the time. As the people of Ireland were unable to raise sufficient funds, because of the low population, a significant amount of the funds were raised in the United Kingdom and United States, often among the emigrant Irish. Potentially winning tickets were drawn from rotating drums, usually by nurses in uniform. Each such ticket was assigned to a horse expected to run in one of several horse races, including the Cambridgeshire Handicap, Derby and Grand National. Tickets that drew the favourite horses thus stood a higher likelihood of winning and a series of winning horses had to be chosen on the accumulator system, allowing for enormous prizes.

    F. F. Warren, the engineer who designed the mixing drums from which sweepstake tickets were drawn
    The original sweepstake draws were held at The Mansion House, Dublin on 19 May 1939 under the supervision of the Chief Commissioner of Police, and were moved to the more permanent fixture at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Ballsbridge later in 1940. The Adelaide Hospital in Dublin was the only hospital at the time not to accept money from the Hospitals Trust, as the governors disapproved of sweepstakes. From the 1960s onwards, revenues declined. The offices were moved to Lotamore House in Cork. Although giving the appearance of a public charitable lottery, with nurses featured prominently in the advertising and drawings, the Sweepstake was in fact a private for-profit lottery company, and the owners were paid substantial dividends from the profits. Fortune Magazine described it as "a private company run for profit and its handful of stockholders have used their earnings from the sweepstakes to build a group of industrial enterprises that loom quite large in the modest Irish economy. Waterford Glass, Irish Glass Bottle Company and many other new Irish companies were financed by money from this enterprise and up to 5,000 people were given jobs."By his death in 1966, Joe McGrath had interests in the racing industry, and held the Renault dealership for Ireland besides large financial and property assets. He was known throughout Ireland for his tough business attitude but also by his generous spirit. At that time, Ireland was still one of the poorer countries in Europe; he believed in investment in Ireland. His home, Cabinteely House, was donated to the state in 1986. The house and the surrounding park are now in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council who have invested in restoring and maintaining the house and grounds as a public park. In 1986, the Irish government created a new public lottery, and the company failed to secure the new contract to manage it. The final sweepstake was held in January 1986 and the company was unsuccessful for a licence bid for the Irish National Lottery, which was won by An Post later that year. The company went into voluntary liquidation in March 1987. The majority of workers did not have a pension scheme but the sweepstake had fed many families during lean times and was regarded as a safe job.The Public Hospitals (Amendment) Act, 1990 was enacted for the orderly winding up of the scheme,which had by then almost £500,000 in unclaimed prizes and accrued interest. A collection of advertising material relating to the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes is among the Special Collections of National Irish Visual Arts Library.

    In the United Kingdom and North America[edit]

    At the time of the Sweepstake's inception, lotteries were generally illegal in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In the absence of other readily available lotteries, the Irish Sweeps became popular. Even though tickets were illegal outside Ireland, millions were sold in the US and Great Britain. How many of these tickets failed to make it back for the drawing is unknown. The United States Customs Service alone confiscated and destroyed several million counterfoils from shipments being returned to Ireland. In the UK, the sweepstakes caused some strain in Anglo-Irish relations, and the Betting and Lotteries Act 1934 was passed by the parliament of the UK to prevent export and import of lottery related materials.[6][7] The United States Congress had outlawed the use of the US Postal Service for lottery purposes in 1890. A thriving black market sprang up for tickets in both jurisdictions. From the 1950s onwards, as the American, British and Canadian governments relaxed their attitudes towards this form of gambling, and went into the lottery business themselves, the Irish Sweeps, never legal in the United States,[8]:227 declined in popularity.
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  • Old Irish Bank Notes Framed Display

    €100.00
      Lovely reproduction of vintage Irish Bank Notes - the old £100,£50 & £20 pound notes which existed until the arrival of the Euro. 45cm x 35cm  Limerick   e Irish Free State, subsequently known as Ireland, resolved in the mid-1920s to design its own coins and banknotes. Upon issuing the new currency, the Free State government pegged its value to the pound sterling. The Currency Act, 1927 was passed as a basis for creating banknotes and the "Saorstát pound" (later the "Irish pound") as the "standard unit of value." The legal tender notes issued under this act began circulating on 10 September 1928.
    When the Irish Free State came into existence in 1922, three categories of banknote were in circulation. These consisted of notes issued by the Bank of England, the British Treasury, and six Irish banks that were chartered to issue notes. Only British Treasury notes were legal tender within the state. The issuing of banknotes by multiple private institutions was an everyday aspect of banking in Great Britain and Ireland at the time and remains so in Northern Ireland and Scotland. A banking commission was created in 1926, the Commission of Inquiry into Banking and the Issue of Notes,[1] to determine what changes were necessary relating to banking and banknote issue in the new state. The commission was chaired by Professor Henry Parker Willis[2] of Columbia University who was Director of Research of the Federal Reserve Board in the United States. The commission's terms of reference were:
    "To consider and to report to the Minister for Finance what changes, if any, in the law relative to banking and note issue are necessary or desirable, regard being had to the altered circumstances arising from the establishment of Saorstát Éireann."
    The commission's report of January 1927 recommended creating a currency for the state that would be directly backed and fixed to the pound sterling in the United Kingdom on a one-for-one basis. This new currency, the "Saorstát pound," was overseen by the politically independent Currency Commission created by the Currency Act, 1927. Because the notes of the commission were backed by the pound sterling, they could be presented at the London Agency of the Currency Commission and exchanged with the pound sterling, without charge or commission, on a one-for-one basis. A second banking commission, the Commission of Inquiry into Banking, Currency and Credit, was created in November 1934 to inquire into creating a central bank. The majority report of August 1938 recommended creating a central bank with enhanced powers and functions. This resulted in the creation of the Central Bank of Ireland, but it would take three decades before the bank would have all the rights and functions associated with a central bank. As per the usual convention for banknote issue, banknotes are and were issued in the name of the Currency Commission or Central Bank existing at printing.

    The pound

    Before the advent of the euro, three series of legal tender notes were issued; these are referred to as "Series A," "Series B," and "Series C," respectively. A series of notes known as the "Consolidated Banknotes" were issued but were not legal tender.

    1928–1977: Series A banknotes

    Main article: Series A Banknotes
    The Currency Commission devised the "Series A" notes. They were printed by Waterlow and Sons, Limited, London which was acquired by De La Rue. The commission created an advisory committee that determined the theme and design of the notes. Notes were in the denominations of 10/-, £1, £5, £10, £20, £50, and £100. Each note has a portrait of Lady Lavery, the wife of the artist Sir John Lavery, who was commissioned to design this feature. The original oil on canvas painting of Lady Lavery, titled Portrait of Lady Lavery as Kathleen Ni Houlihan (1927), is displayed at the National Gallery of Ireland on loan from the Central Bank of Ireland. The theme on the reverse of the notes is the rivers of Ireland, which are depicted as heads taken from the Custom House, Dublin. Rivers in both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland were chosen. Each note also contains a watermark of the Head of Erin.

    1929–1953: Consolidated banknotes

    This series of banknotes were never legal tender . They were equivalent to "promissory notes" that continue to be issued by some banks in the United Kingdom. Notes were issued as a transitional measure for the eight "Shareholding Banks" of the Currency Commission: Bank of Ireland, Hibernian Bank, Munster & Leinster Bank, National Bank, Northern Bank, Provincial Bank of Ireland, Royal Bank of Ireland, and Ulster Bank. These notes were first issued between 6 May and 10 June 1929 under the arrangement that the banks withdraw previous notes and refrain from issuing further notes. The consolidated notes were only issued by the Currency Commission. The last notes were printed in 1941. The notes were officially withdrawn on 31 December 1953. The front of each note depicted a man ploughing a field with two horses. They are referred to as the "Ploughman Notes." The notes' denominations and the back designs were; £1 (Custom House, Dublin), £5 (St. Patrick's Bridge, Cork), £10 (Currency Commission Building, Foster Place, Dublin), £20 (Rock of Cashel, County Tipperary), £50 (Croagh Patrick, County Mayo), and £100 (Killiney Bay, County Dublin). The name of the issuing Shareholding Bank also varied, along with the corresponding authorising signature.

    1976–1993: Series B banknotes

    The Central Bank of Ireland commissioned the "Series B" notes. They were designed and brought into circulation between 1976 and 1982. Servicon, an Irish design company, designed the £1, £5, £10, £20, £50, and £100 denominations. The £100 note was never issued or circulated. This is the only series of Irish banknotes without a note of this denomination. The theme of these notes was the history of Ireland. Each note featured the portrait of a historical figure. The Lady Lavery portrait, from Series A, was retained as a watermark.

    1992–2001: Series C banknotes

    This series of notes called "Series C" was the outcome of a limited competition, held in 1991, to which nine Irish artists were invited. The winner and designer of the series was Robert Ballagh. This series of notes had denominations of £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100. No Irish pound note was designed because the currency had a coin of this value since 1990. This series was introduced at short notice, with the £20 note being the first to be issued, following widespread forgery of the Series B £20 note. The last banknote of the Series C issue was a £50 note that was issued in 2001. The theme for this series was people who contributed to the formation of modern Ireland. To this effect, it includes politicians, a literary figure, and a religious figure. The political figures do not include anyone directly associated with the Irish War of Independence, which eventually led to the creation of the Irish Free State.
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  • Old Irish Bank Notes Framed Display

    €100.00
    Lovely reproduction of vintage Irish Bank Notes - the old £10,£5 & £1 pound notes which existed until the arrival of the Euro. 45cm x 35cm  Limerick The Irish Free State, subsequently known as Ireland, resolved in the mid-1920s to design its own coins and banknotes. Upon issuing the new currency, the Free State government pegged its value to the pound sterling. The Currency Act, 1927 was passed as a basis for creating banknotes and the "Saorstát pound" (later the "Irish pound") as the "standard unit of value." The legal tender notes issued under this act began circulating on 10 September 1928. When the Irish Free State came into existence in 1922, three categories of banknote were in circulation. These consisted of notes issued by the Bank of England, the British Treasury, and six Irish banks that were chartered to issue notes. Only British Treasury notes were legal tender within the state. The issuing of banknotes by multiple private institutions was an everyday aspect of banking in Great Britain and Ireland at the time and remains so in Northern Ireland and Scotland. A banking commission was created in 1926, the Commission of Inquiry into Banking and the Issue of Notes,[1] to determine what changes were necessary relating to banking and banknote issue in the new state. The commission was chaired by Professor Henry Parker Willis of Columbia University who was Director of Research of the Federal Reserve Board in the United States. The commission's terms of reference were:
    "To consider and to report to the Minister for Finance what changes, if any, in the law relative to banking and note issue are necessary or desirable, regard being had to the altered circumstances arising from the establishment of Saorstát Éireann."
    The commission's report of January 1927 recommended creating a currency for the state that would be directly backed and fixed to the pound sterling in the United Kingdom on a one-for-one basis.This new currency, the "Saorstát pound," was overseen by the politically independent Currency Commission created by the Currency Act, 1927. Because the notes of the commission were backed by the pound sterling, they could be presented at the London Agency of the Currency Commission and exchanged with the pound sterling, without charge or commission, on a one-for-one basis. A second banking commission, the Commission of Inquiry into Banking, Currency and Credit, was created in November 1934 to inquire into creating a central bank. The majority report of August 1938 recommended creating a central bank with enhanced powers and functions. This resulted in the creation of the Central Bank of Ireland, but it would take three decades before the bank would have all the rights and functions associated with a central bank. As per the usual convention for banknote issue, banknotes are and were issued in the name of the Currency Commission or Central Bank existing at printing. Before the advent of the euro, three series of legal tender notes were issued; these are referred to as "Series A," "Series B," and "Series C," respectively. A series of notes known as the "Consolidated Banknotes" were issued but were not legal tender.

    The Currency Commission devised the "Series A" notes. They were printed by Waterlow and Sons, Limited, London which was acquired by De La Rue. The commission created an advisory committee that determined the theme and design of the notes. Notes were in the denominations of 10/-, £1, £5, £10, £20, £50, and £100. Each note has a portrait of Lady Lavery, the wife of the artist Sir John Lavery, who was commissioned to design this feature. The original oil on canvas painting of Lady Lavery, titled Portrait of Lady Lavery as Kathleen Ni Houlihan (1927), is displayed at the National Gallery of Ireland on loan from the Central Bank of Ireland. The theme on the reverse of the notes is the rivers of Ireland, which are depicted as heads taken from the Custom House, Dublin. Rivers in both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland were chosen. Each note also contains a watermark of the Head of Erin.

    1929–1953: Consolidated banknotes

    This series of banknotes were never legal tender . They were equivalent to "promissory notes" that continue to be issued by some banks in the United Kingdom. Notes were issued as a transitional measure for the eight "Shareholding Banks" of the Currency Commission: Bank of Ireland, Hibernian Bank, Munster & Leinster Bank, National Bank, Northern Bank, Provincial Bank of Ireland, Royal Bank of Ireland, and Ulster Bank. These notes were first issued between 6 May and 10 June 1929 under the arrangement that the banks withdraw previous notes and refrain from issuing further notes. The consolidated notes were only issued by the Currency Commission. The last notes were printed in 1941. The notes were officially withdrawn on 31 December 1953. The front of each note depicted a man ploughing a field with two horses. They are referred to as the "Ploughman Notes." The notes' denominations and the back designs were; £1 (Custom House, Dublin), £5 (St. Patrick's Bridge, Cork), £10 (Currency Commission Building, Foster Place, Dublin), £20 (Rock of Cashel, County Tipperary), £50 (Croagh Patrick, County Mayo), and £100 (Killiney Bay, County Dublin). The name of the issuing Shareholding Bank also varied, along with the corresponding authorising signature.

    1976–1993: Series B banknotes

    The Central Bank of Ireland commissioned the "Series B" notes. They were designed and brought into circulation between 1976 and 1982. Servicon, an Irish design company, designed the £1, £5, £10, £20, £50, and £100 denominations. The £100 note was never issued or circulated. This is the only series of Irish banknotes without a note of this denomination. The theme of these notes was the history of Ireland. Each note featured the portrait of a historical figure. The Lady Lavery portrait, from Series A, was retained as a watermark.

    1992–2001: Series C banknotes

    Main article: Series C Banknotes
    This series of notes called "Series C" was the outcome of a limited competition, held in 1991, to which nine Irish artists were invited. The winner and designer of the series was Robert Ballagh. This series of notes had denominations of £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100. No Irish pound note was designed because the currency had a coin of this value since 1990. This series was introduced at short notice, with the £20 note being the first to be issued, following widespread forgery of the Series B £20 note. The last banknote of the Series C issue was a £50 note that was issued in 2001. The theme for this series was people who contributed to the formation of modern Ireland. To this effect, it includes politicians, a literary figure, and a religious figure. The political figures do not include anyone directly associated with the Irish War of Independence, which eventually led to the creation of the Irish Free State.
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  • Thomas Power’s Dungarvan- St Brigids Well Brewery -Cider Advert

    €100.00
    Fantastic & atmospheric Thomas Power's Cider advert from the 1920s. 30cm x 40cm Dungarvan Co Waterford Thomas Power (1856-1930) was the first chairman of Waterford County Council and was chairman of Dungarvan Town Commissioners on a number of occasions.  In the 1880s he was in partnership with his brother producing mineral waters.  In 1904 he began producing his award winning Blackwater Cider.
    In 1917 Thomas purchased the old St Brigid's Well Brewery in Fair Lane, Dungarvan from the Marquis of Waterford.  The business was a great success and its produce was in demand all over County Waterford and beyond.  After his death the brewery was taken over by his son Paul I. Power who managed it until 1976 when his son Ion took over. Brewing took place in Dungarvan throughout history but we only have detailed information from the late 18th century onwards. In 1917 the Marquis sold the property and it was acquired by Thomas Power. He developed a thriving business known as Power's Brewery. This brewing tradition continues into the modern era with the Dungarvan Brewing Company.
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  • Patrick Egan & Co. No 8 Irish Whiskey Framed Display

    €100.00
    Framed Thomas Egan Tullamore Display 39cm x 34cm  Birr Co Offaly Patrick Egan, a solicitor from Moate, is descended from very old Westmeath stock. His forbearers fought at the famous Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and again at Aughrim in 1691. Two of three Egan sons were killed in battle and the third was withdrawn from his priestly studies to preserve the family name.

    The surviving Egan did indeed marry, ensuring the survival of his bloodline and carrying the Egan name into the 18th century. This is the backdrop to a fascinating legacy that lives on to this day.

    In 1835, in the House of Commons, Daniel O'Connell nominated Patrick Egan as Crown Solicitor of Westmeath, a position he held for 40 years. He set his sons up as merchants, expanding from Moate in County Westmeath to Tullamore, County Offaly in 1852.

    Patrick's sons, Patrick James and Henry James Egan, established P. & H. Egan Limited and grew the business into a well-recognised and prosperous enterprise, one of the most important in the region at the time

    Patrick J. was a benevolent and devout Catholic who held the welfare of his employees and fellow townsfolk close to his heart. A renowned workaholic and popular introvert, Patrick was the commercial brains behind P. & H. Egan Limited.

    Not only was he the driving force for expanding the business into its many interests but also instilled some the highest of standards regarding work practices at the time.

    At its height, P. & H. Egan Limited had a hugely diverse array of business interests. They were general grocers, hoteliers, ironmongers, maltsters, brewers, and bonders to name just a few.

    The Egan brothers were formidable businessmen, whose passion and drive left an indelible mark on the commercial, political and social history of Tullamore, in the heart of Ireland.

    Henry J. Egan was a passionate Irishman and the company’s public speaker. In 1881, Henry and others were charged under the Coercion Act and jailed in Naas, Co. Kildare, for organising a 'monster meeting' at Clara, for Charles Stuart Parnell, an Irish nationalist and freedom fighter.

    Upon his release, Henry was to become a town commissioner and was elected the first Chairman of Kings County Council.

    In I883, Egan's Tullamore Brewery employed 50 people, producing 30 to 40 barrels of ale per day. Growth led to the addition of new warehousing in 1886 and two years later an impressive 5,000 ton maltings was built. Further expansions occurred in 1890 and 1896 - the year P. & H. Egan Limited was formally registered as a Public Limited Company (PLC) In 1889, Capt. Thomas Armstrong Drought, the High Sherriff of King's County, wrote of Egan's saying "their beer is very good and their 'eau de vie' (whiskey) is excellent".

    Egan’s Tullamore Ale was recognised as the finest dinner ale available in Ireland at the time. Indeed, such was the reputation of our whiskeys and ales, expansion into the much larger UK market quickly took hold.

      An apprentice carpenter employed by P. & H. Egan Limited, John Spain, was one of a number involved in the 'Tullamore Incident', where the first shots of the famous Easter Rising were fired, on the 25th March 1916. This was the beginning of a long, bloody journey to Irish independence.

    Spain was arrested at the Egan's workshop and taken to Tullamore R.I.C Barracks, before being released one month later. He fought right through the War of Independence and moved steadily up the ranks of the Irish army, becoming a Company Captain soon after.

    The Egan family set about resurrecting their family brand in 2013. Family members from across the globe, across generations, came together and reformed P. & H. Egan Ltd. Family-owned and operated, the Egan’s portfolio embodies the true spirit of Irish whiskey, six generations in whiskey.

     
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  • Fr Ted 25 year anniversary commemorative Stamp Display

    €120.00
    Beautifully framed,enlarged print of the Fr Ted commemorative 3 stamp collection as issued by An Post to mark the anniversary of the legendary comedy series. 22cm x 48cm  Limerick

    A quarter of a century after it first aired, Father Ted, one of television’s most loved sitcoms, has officially stamped itself on popular culture.

    Ireland’s post service, An Post, issued a set of stamps on Thursday to celebrate its characters and one-liners and to mark the show’s 25thanniversary.

    Phrases forever associated with Craggy Island, the fictional home of three wayward priests and their housekeeper, now adorn four stamps: “That’s mad, Ted”, “Will you have a cup of tea, Father?”, “That money was just resting in my account” and “That would be an ecumenical matter”.

    Retro wallpaper in the background of each stamp matches different rooms in the parochial house where Fr Ted, Fr Dougal, Fr Jack and Mrs Doyle played out surreal scenes that entered comedy lore.

    “I don’t think until today it has sunk in what a huge thing it is, what an honour,” Pauline McLynn, who played Mrs Doyle, told the Guardian. “How many people do you know can say ‘I was once on a stamp’?”

    The writers, cast and crew never imagined that the show, which ran for three seasons from 1995 to 1998, would become so popular or enduring, said the actor.

    “I often wonder about the staying power. It’s incredibly stupid and properly funny. We made it 25 years ago and now kids are still finding it incredibly funny. You always hope that things you’re proud of will last the test of time.”

    Cast
    Frank Kelly as Father Jack, Pauline McLynn as Mrs Doyle, Dermot Morgan as Father Ted Crilly, Ardal O’Hanlon as Father Dougal. Photograph: Ronald Grant archive

    Written by Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, Father Ted was made by Hat Trick Productions for Channel 4. It won multiple awards including Baftas and rivals Fawlty Towers and Seinfeld for funniest comedy in viewer polls.

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  • Original 1930’s Irish Pub Ephemera Framed Display (Medium Size )

    €120.00
    33cm x 38cm  Co Kerry Stumbling upon an old suitcase, we discovered a cache of wonderful old bullheads,return dockets, invoices and other commercial ephemera from the late 1920's and 1930's.They originated from a now closed licensed premises-Courtney's of Castlegregory Co Kerry-situated on the Dingle Peninsula not far from the start of the Connor Pass. We then decided to out them to best use by making framed  display collages using the original items and have also included some original Guinness bottle labels from around the country to add a little more historical flavour ! A truly unique and unusual piece of Irish Pub Memorabilia which can only appreciate in value over the years given they are already heading for a century old. Each display is different to the next also adding to their rarity value- a truly once off item for any proud Irish Pub or home bar !
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  • Vintage ‘You can’t beat Mick McQuaid’ Tobacco Advert

    €140.00
    63cm x 29cm A very popular Pipe Tobacco from the P.Carrolls Tobacco Company in Dundalk Co Louth was Mick McQuaids.But who was this legendary, smiling character the product was inspired by ??? The tales of Mick McQuaid  were first written by William Francis Lynam – a soldier, writer and editor who was born in Galway in 1833 and died in Dublin in 1894. Little is known about his background (or his military career), but by the 1860s he was living in Dublin and was – it appears – the owner and editor of the Shamrock story paper.   One of the earliest Irish story papers, it was established in 1866 as a penny weekly ‘companion’ paper to the Irishman newspaper. The Irishman, a very advanced nationalist paper, was established in 1859 by Richard Pigott – a very colourful character in Irish journalism who would acquire infamy as the forger of the damning letters supposedly written by Parnell in the 1880s. The exact editorial and proprietorial relationship between the Irishman and the Shamrock is rather murky – some sources imply Pigott owned them both, while others insist that Lynam owned the Shamrock, in which case the precise nature of their connection is unknown. Pigott and Lynam may have been actual business partners, or simply had an informal alliance. The 1860s was of course the era of the Fenian movement in Ireland and abroad, and under Pigott’s editorship the Irishmanwas a very popular voice for Fenianism. If the Irishman was aimed at an adult readership seeking radical political news and commentary, the Shamrock was its more entertaining younger sibling, intended to instil a sense of national pride and identity in its boy (and occasional girl) readers. To do this, it specialised in exciting Irish historical fiction serials, set at key moments of Irish nationalist history such as the 1798 Rebellion or the Jacobite Wars, and usually centred around an ordinary Irish boy who readers could identify with as he became swept into political and military excitements and encountered historical figures such as Wolfe Tone or Redmond O’Hanlon. But as well as historical fiction, the Shamrock also published romances and vernacular tales of Irish life. The most successful of these vernacular tales were, by a very long way, the Mick McQuaid stories. A series of comic tales (although to be quite honest the modern reader might take some convincing of that description) set in what was then contemporary Ireland, they all featured the adventures of central character Mick McQuaid – a quick-thinking, wise-cracking chancer who nevertheless usually managed to save the day and prevent the more straight-forward villainy of figures such as agents for absentee landlords, or local gombeen men. Each story saw Mick in a new role and setting, such as ‘Mick McQuaid, Money Lender’, ‘Mick McQuaid, Member of Parliament’, ‘Mick McQuaid, Detective’, and ‘Mick McQuaid, Evangelist’. Each story was long, with (overly) complex plots, many characters, comic tangents and multiple narrative threads to be resolved, so they were serialised in short instalments over several months of weekly issues. These kind of serial stories were crucial to story papers, designed to bring readers back week after week and build a loyal and regular readership, and the Mick McQuaid stories were a classic example of their type. It has to be admitted it would be difficult to that claim the stories deserve to be ‘rediscovered’ by modern readers. They are an interesting window into popular fiction of the era, especially in terms of their representations of Irish life and society – however their plots are unwieldy, their humour has not aged well and they are written in an almost impenetrable ‘Irish’ dialect which was obviously part of their appeal in the 1860s but which is extremely difficult to read now. Instead what is most interesting about the Mick McQuaid stories is their extraordinary popularity across many decades. Lynam reportedly became bored with the stories after just a few years, and indeed replaced them with tales of another very similar ‘charming Irish rogue’ anti-hero, the Darby Durkan series, which in their turn were also fairly popular. But popular demand for continued Mick McQuaid stories forced him to write more of them (a common experience for authors of popular fiction, most famously in the case of Conan Doyle’s reluctant resurrection of Sherlock Holmes). Indeed, the circulation of the Shamrock reportedly dropped sharply when he attempted to end the McQuaid stories, so they had to be revived and reprinted. It is difficult to be sure exactly how many stories there are in total (perhaps ten or so), each one lasting up to 6 months of weekly instalments – but for a youthful audience this was enough to keep printing and reprinting them over years and eventually decades. Rather like the endlessly circulating repeats of television sit-coms in our own era, which happily rewatched by fans and watched for the first time by successive generations (Faulty Towers being the obvious example, with just twelve episodes ever made in the 1970s, but which are still being screened 40 years later) these very popular serials played on an endless loop in the story papers. Lynam died in 1894, but his serials lived on without him. The Darby Durkan stories appeared in the Shamrock’s rival story paper the Emerald in the early 20thC, and after the two papers merged in 1912 the McQuaid stories also continued in the new paper until its demise in 1919 – and may well have continued to appear in other publications after that although I have yet to find them. Their popularity was such that in 1889 Carroll’s Tobacco company in Dundalk named a new brand of pipe tobacco after Mick McQuaid, who often smoked a pipe in the stories as he held forth with his distinctive folk wisdom. The brand was itself a great success (presumably the tobacco and the stories amplified each other’s standing among readers and smokers in ways that benefitted both), and by the 1920s Carroll’s had commissioned a cartoon version of Mick McQuaid for their packaging and advertising – the photograph accompanying this post is of a tobacco tin from the mid-20thC. So while the stories had not had significant illustrations during their 19thC hey-day, the Mick McQuaid character took visual form years after his author’s death, and in fact became one of mid-20thC Ireland’s most successful brands, only being discontinued in 2016 – a strange afterlife for a fictional character first invented in 1867.
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  • Vintage 1950s Shannon Airport-Gateway to Ireland Advert

    €150.00
    Interesting Shannon Airport Irish Air Lines retro advert. Origins : Bunratty Co Clare.   Dimensions : 70cm x 50cm  

    Worldwide Duty Free selling  is a $70 billion business, but it has its origins in the mind of one Clare man. And like many innovations, the concept of duty free, which first came to Shannon Airport in 1952, was born of necessity.Today the global travel retail business is a firm fixture at airports across the world, and the concept has made a lot of money for a lot of people.But not for Brendan O’Regan, the man with the idea.

    He was born into “the first generation of free Irish men” in relatively well-off surroundings in Sixmilebridge, Co Clare in 1917. His father, James, was chairman of Clare County Council and a successful businessman. The family was in the hotel business, and for a time leased the renowned Falls Hotel in Ennistymon and the Old Ground in Ennis. Sent as a boarder to Blackrock College in Dublin in 1931, O’Regan enjoyed early renown when he requested that the college, which by then had given up on the camán, field a hurling team in the Leinster Colleges cup.

    His next step after school was training in hotel management, an interest that brought him to Germany, France and the UK, before coming home to run The Falls. He then moved to the ailing St Stephen’s Green club in Dublin, before being appointed catering comptroller at Foynes flying boat base in Co Limerick, then a refuelling point for transatlantic seaplanes.

    It was here his passion for travel took off, but it was his next move that sealed his legacy.

    Shannon Airport

    Rineanna on the Shannon estuary in Co Clare, chosen by then taoiseach Seán Lemass as the site for a new airport for both sea and land planes, opened in October 1945, when the first transatlantic commercial air service from Boston landed there. It soon became Europe’s most important transatlantic airport, handling more than 100,000 passengers in 1946, its first full year of operation.

    When O’Regan joined the nascent airport, its future was by no means secure. The imminent arrival of jet planes, which meant US planes would no longer have to stop in Shannon to refuel, was of concern, while the political apparatus of the day favoured focusing efforts on one airport in Dublin.

    Fearing “economic annihilation” for the new airport, O’Regan sought a new venture that would help secure its future. Inspiration struck when he was returning home by sea from a visit to the United States, arranged under the Marshall Plan to allow the Irish government to study US tourism.

    As told in the recently published book Brendan O’Regan: Irish Innovator, Visionary and Peacemaker by Brian O’Connell and Cian O’Carroll, O’Regan had a “eureka” moment on board.

    “I saw the shop that was selling duty-free goods and my brain said to me: “If they can do it when you are crossing the sea in a boat, you can surely be able to do [it] when you land for the first time.”

    He had to convince the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Revenue Commissioners of the merits of forgoing tax on the sale of goods, while local traders also opposed the move.

    Nonetheless, O’Regan got the go-ahead and by July 1950 he had set up an operation in a timber hut outside the terminal, selling whiskey for $1.50 a bottle. The following year, the first duty-free shop in the world opened, with a bottle of whiskey on sale for just 30s, compared with 10s 6d in a regular shop, while in 1954 a mail order service was included. It went on to become a vast operation, mailing to locations all around the world, quality items such as crystal, china, fashionable clothing and jewellery.

    Contagious idea

    The concept soon caught on. In 1957 Amsterdam became the next airport to open a duty free, with the concept making its way across the Atlantic in 1962. Prince Philip was an early admirer of the concept, and he wanted it extended to all the UK’s international airports.

    O’Regan also inspired philanthropist Chuck Feeney, who took the idea of duty free and galloped ahead with it, founding Duty Free Shoppers Group (DFS) in Hawaii in 1962, which later became the largest duty-free retailer in the world.

    These years also saw the invention of Irish coffee, after O’Regan asked chef Joe Sheridan to “come up with something special” to warm up transatlantic passengers tired and cold after their trip.

    But duty free was only part of the equation. O’Regan’s big dream was to position Shannon as the European manufacturing basis for US companies, and to bring employment and prosperity to the region.

    Senator TK Whitaker, Brendan O’Regan (centre) and Dr Jerry Dempsey. Photograph: Peter Thursfield
    Senator TK Whitaker, Brendan O’Regan (centre) and Dr Jerry Dempsey. Photograph: Peter Thursfield

    Shaped by the devastating impact poverty and emigration had on the county of his birth, O’Regan often repeated his father’s maxim, that “the most important thing about life is to create work for others, if you can”.

    In the 1950s, the post-war boom that lifted the US, Europe and the UK had missed Ireland, and emigration was running at the highest level since independence.

    So O’Regan didn’t stop at the duty free.

    In 1951, he established the Shannon College of Hotel Management, which is still operating today and the graduates of which have managed the world’s top hotels, while he also leveraged the area’s potential as a tourist hub. He identified the potential of Bunratty Castle as a tourist attraction and, with the co-operation of its owner, Lord Gort, it was renovated and opened to the public in 1960, with the first medieval banquet held shortly thereafter. O’Regan later chaired Bord Fáilte.

    Great times

    “He was very much a leader and innovative in the sense that he thought up ideas himself,” recalls O’Carroll, who worked alongside O’Regan as estates manager in the Shannon Free Airport Development Company Limited (SFADCO). “He would work very intensively until the project was launched, and then he would go on to the next project”.

    It was a time of “brainstorming picnics”, and consultancy reports, to try and hit on a new idea.

    “They were great times,” says O’Carroll. “If an idea came up, and it was any way worthwhile, it would stand a very good chance of implementation.”

    The big move came in the establishment of the Shannon Free Zone, the world’s first free trade zone, in 1959, overseen by SFADCO. It operated a licensing system, offering qualifying companies a corporation tax rate of just 10 per cent; a model that would later be taken up by the IFSC.

    O’Regan’s idea, inspired by the Free Zone in Colon, Panama, was greeted with much scepticism initially, but his ability to build good relationships, particularly with those in government, helped secure the initiative.

    “He had the ability to short-circuit a lot of things in terms of procedures in getting approval,” says O’Carroll, adding that “this clearly annoyed civil servants at the time.”

    Indeed his initials, BOR, in Shannon came to mean “Bash on regardless”.

    So, on an “if you build it they will come” ambition, SFADCO set about building factories – without any tenants. A Dutch piano manufacturer owned by Johan J Rippen was the first real enterprise to come to Shannon, followed by Sony, and diamond company De Beers in 1960.

    Tourism smarts

    O’Regan also ramped up the region’s renown as a tourist destination, using his tools of persuasion to garner investment.

    When Bernard McDonough, a wealthy Irish-American industrialist pulled out of a planned ball-bearing factory in the Shannon Free Zone, O’Regan told him about a nearby castle that was for sale. He took the bait and bought it; in 1963 Dromoland Castle opened as a five-star hotel. McDonough would later open a further three hotels in the area.

    When he heard of a plan by German investors to acquire the land leading to the Cliffs of Moher, he rang then Clare county manager Joe Boland, who subsequently got the county council to buy it.

    During the 1970s he moved away from his formal roles in Shannon, and turned his attention to the peace process, founding Co-operation North (now Co-operation Ireland) in 1979. He died in 2008, and a bronze bust sculpture was unveiled at Shannon Airport in May 2017 to mark the centenary of his birth.

    A man of his time – as O’Carroll recalls, an “infinitely simpler” time – he nonetheless left a significant legacy.

    As described when receiving an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland in 1978: “Rare is the man of whom it can be justly said that he transformed the social, economic and industrial life of a whole region”

    The Shannon project was not just about creating jobs; it was also about providing homes for the workers who flocked there.

    By the late 1950s the housing issue, which had plagued the development of the hub since the early days, was becoming a crisis. So, in 1960, a proposal was tabled for the creation of a new town; an innovation without precedent in post-war Ireland.

    Inspired by the British new towns that arose after the war, including Crawleyin Sussex and Stevenage in Hertfordshire, Brendan O’Regan and his team sought to build a new hub for workers of the airport and the industrial zone.

    The creation of the first new town in the history of the State was not without challenges; there were political ructions as to who would oversee the project – the government or SFADCO – while residents of nearby Limerick city accused Brendan O’Regan of “empire building”, as they rued the fact that the development did not happen in Limerick instead.

    Nonetheless, by 1962 the first residents were moving in, all of whom were tenants of SFADCO and who had to work either in the airport or industrial area to qualify for affordable housing.

    As SFADCO estates manager Cian O’Carroll recalls, building the houses so close to a place of huge employment was key, as was the fact that units were small – but even larger families were catered for.

    “We often let them two houses and knocked them together,” he says.

    Also key to its success was the fact that housing was affordable, and graded and related to people’s incomes. After some time a tenant purchase scheme was introduced, allowing people to buy their homes outright.

    Today the town is home to some 10,000 residents, and remains one of the few examples of a new planned town in Ireland.

    “It hasn’t grown as much as people might have expected, but it has its own social and economic viability,” says O’Carroll.

    As to why subsequent governments haven’t looked to emulate the success of Shannon – particularly given our housing shortages – O’Carroll suggests it’s due to an ideological shift away from the State doing things directly themselves, instead encouraging the private sector to do the same through tax incentives and other methods.

    “It’s a shame,” he says.

    In the late 1930s, transatlantic air traffic was dominated by flying boats, and a flying boat terminal was located at Foynes on the south side of the Shannon Estuary. However, it was realised that changing technology would require a permanent runway and airport. In 1936, the Government of Ireland confirmed that it would develop a 3.1-square-kilometre (1.2 sq mi) site at Rineanna for the country's first transatlantic airport. The land on which the airport was to be built was boggy, and on 8 October 1936 work began to drain the land. In July 1939, a SABENA Savoia-Marchetti S.73 from Brussels via Croydon Airport was the first commercial flight to use the Rineanna airfield.[8] By 1942 a serviceable airport had been established and was named Shannon Airport. By 1945 the existing runways at Shannon were extended to allow transatlantic flightsto land. When World War II ended, the airport was ready to be used by the many new post-war commercial airlines of Europe and North America. On 16 September 1945 the first transatlantic proving flight, a Pan Am DC-4, landed at Shannon from Gander. On 24 October 1945, the first scheduled commercial flight, an American Overseas Airlines DC-4, Flagship New England, stopped at the airport on the New York City–Gander–Shannon–London route. An accident involving President Airlines on 10 September 1961 resulted in the loss of 83 lives. The Douglas DC-6 aircraft crashed into the River Shannon while leaving Shannon Airport for Gander. The number of international carriers rose sharply in succeeding years as Shannon became well known as the gateway between Europe and the Americas; limited aircraft range necessitated refuelling stops on many journeys. Shannon became the most convenient stopping point before and after a trip across the Atlantic. Additionally, during the Cold War, many transatlantic flights from the Soviet Union stopped here for refueling, because Shannon was the westernmost non-NATO airport on the European side of the Atlantic. On September 30, 1994 Shannon was the site of the "circling over Shannon" diplomatic incident involving Boris Yeltsin.
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  • Bronze Coursing Greyhound

    €150.00
    Beautiful bronze statuette of an unmuzzled coursing greyhound.The sometimes controversial pursuit of coursing is  still a hugely popular one in Ireland along with greyhound racing. 30cm x 15cm x 10cm   Patrickswell Co Limerick
    Ireland has been associated with the coursing of greyhounds for generations, although the Irish Coursing Club was not formally established until 1916. Before then, the sport of coursing and its rules were already highly developed in England for several hundred years, and it was the Duke of Norfolk who fully described them as the Laws of the Leash in the late 1500s. Many standards we still see in coursing today can be found in Laws of the Leash, and this includes only two greyhounds released at a time, and allowing the hare a significant head start before the greyhounds are slipped. These practices and others were already well in use and we know this from the work of a Greek historian writing extensively about the proper raising and training of the swift Celtic sighthounds. In his work, Cynegeticus, also simply called,On Coursing, Arrian’s comment about the purpose of coursing still holds true today, almost two thousand years later: “true sportsmen do not take their dogs out for the sake of catching a hare but for the contest and sport of coursing and are glad if the hare meets with an escape” Coursing is managed and regulated by the Irish Coursing Club (ICC), and consists of 89 affiliated clubs from Ireland and Northern Ireland, all of whom must abide by the ICC’s rules and regulations. Club Representatives are nominated and voted on to the Executive Committee to manage the affairs of the club, together with the President, Treasurer and Secretary. With many thousands of active members, people from all walks of life and of all ages participate in the sport – men, women, boys and girls, and in many cases it has been enjoyed within the same family for generations. The two main highlights of the year are the National Meeting in Clonmel, held in February, and followed a few weeks later by the Irish Cup, hosted by the County Limerick Coursing Club. Coursing is all about the hare, a remarkable work of nature which has thrived for thousands of years on our island, and will continue to flourish only with the assistance of coursing clubs. It is this concern for hare conservation that makes the sport so indispensable and unique. Without the efforts of our sport, the hare population would be without the significant layer of protection it presently enjoys from the hare husbandry initiatives afforded by coursing clubs on a 12 month basis. The Irish hare is legally protected since 1930 in the Republic of Ireland, initially under the Game Preservation Act (1930), more recently by the Wildlife Act (1976) and Wildlife (Amendment) Act (2000). The hare is listed as an internationally important species in the Irish Red Data Book (Whilde, 1993). hare-620 Coursing operates in a highly regulated environment coupled with comprehensive rules directly applied by the ICC. It operates under a licence from the Minister of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, issued annually with a total of 22 conditions attached. Although our sport may take place only over the winter months and is sensitive to the hare breeding season, the protection and policing of preserves is a continuous activity and conducted on a voluntary basis. Quercus, the Belfast University research body reports that “Irish hares are 18 times more abundant in areas managed by the Irish Coursing Club than at similar sites in the wider countryside”. Without regulated coursing there would be an increase of unregulated illegal hunting taking place throughout the year, with no organisation taking responsibility or interest in the overall well-being of the hare. If coursing clubs ceased to perform their functions, the hare population here would decline at a rapid rate as the proliferation of illegal hunting could easily rise to epidemic proportions as seen in the UK, where poaching and hare population decline are the order of the day. Finally, I offer a quote I recently found that seems appropriate: “The future of coursing is so dependent on hare preservation that no effort should be spared by us to put it on an assured basis.”That was from an October 1924 edition of the Irish Coursing Calendar, now known as the Sporting Press newspaper. The Irish Coursing Club has been, and will continue to be, deeply immersed in the conservation of the Irish Hare population, always seeking new ways to improve conservation in the face of loss of habitat due to the “advances” of our modern world and in spite of grossly uninformed efforts to ban it when no proven alternative conservation programmes are in place. hare-greyhound-620
    There are 18 Greyhound Racing stadiums operating in Ireland (two in Northern Ireland) of which ten are operated by the Bord na gCon (Irish Greyhound Board) with the remaining six owned and operated by private enterprise but licensed by the Bord na gCon. Most have modern facilities including grandstand restaurant's and Parimutuel betting tote system with on-course and off-course betting available. The Bord na gCon is a commercial semi-state body and reports to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Greyhound racing as it is seen today evolved from a sport called coursing. In 1926 the oval form of racing arrived in Britain at Belle Vue Stadium in Manchester which resulted in the creation of hundreds of tracks all over the United Kingdom and Ireland in the following ten years.   The sport of greyhound racing in Ireland mainly takes place in the Republic of Ireland but also in Northern Ireland. However, any tracks in Northern Ireland have always been in a state of limbo due to the fact that they are licensed neither by the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) nor the Bord na gCon. To confuse matters, even more, the industry regards racing as either UK or Irish, the latter including Northern Ireland.[5] The Irish Greyhound Board provide all of the results from Northern Ireland. The vast majority of greyhounds running in the UK are bred in Ireland (95% in 2017). A new act called the 'Greyhound Racing Ireland Act 2019' was brought in to improve welfare within the industry. The act would also grant the Irish Greyhound Board extra authority to take action against anyone that fell short of the welfare standards. During 2019 the IGB had condemned some breeder practices.Additionally the Bord na gCon was renamed the Rásaíocht Con Éireann (Greyhound Racing Ireland).

    There are many types of competitions in Ireland but the primary race is the Irish Greyhound Derby held at Shelbourne Park. Along with the English Greyhound Derby and Scottish Greyhound Derby they are considered the big three in greyhound racing. The Irish Greyhound Board publish an annual list of feature events. Leading events include the Easter Cup, Champion Stakes, Cesarewitch, Oaks, Laurels and St LegeThis is any minor race staged at a track, and prize money is varied. This kind of racing is the most common and the core of most stadiums.Greyhound racing in Ireland has a standard colour scheme (the same as the UK).
    • Trap 1 = Red with White numeral
    • Trap 2 = Blue with White numeral
    • Trap 3 = White with Black numeral
    • Trap 4 = Black with White numeral
    • Trap 5 = Orange with Black numeral
    • Trap 6 = Black & White Stripes with Red numeral
    A racing jacket worn by a reserve bears an additional letter 'R' prominently on each side  
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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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