Advertising from 1927 — Chapters of Dublin

Eighteen Dublin advertisements from 1927, for toffee, hats, a picture house, Turkish baths and Ford cars, plus an early Fianna Fáil election appeal.

Dublin in 1927

The advertisements on this page date from the fifth year of the Irish Free State, established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty. 1927 was a busy political year: two general elections were held, in June and September, and Fianna Fáil, founded by Éamon de Valera in 1926, took its seats in Dáil Éireann for the first time that August. The party’s appeal here belongs to that campaigning year.

Several notices reflect the new state’s interest in home manufacture. Ford’s cars were advertised as made in the Irish Free State, a reference to the company’s factory at the Marina in Cork, which had opened in 1917. Cleeve’s, whose sweets appear here, was a Limerick firm, and other advertisers likewise stressed Irish production, from table waters to toffee. The Dublin Civic Week notice gives details of a city festival held that year.

Taken together, the advertisements show the everyday commerce of the city: a picture house, restaurants offering luncheons, a hatter, an assurance company, a trading company, motor spirit, Turkish baths on St Stephen’s Green, and remedies for boils and for pyorrhoea, a disease of the gums. Click any thumbnail to open a larger image. For the wider background, see the chronology of Dublin, 1900–2000, and for an earlier view of the city, Mecredy’s tours of Dublin from 1905. Other short pieces are listed in the general contents.

The Power of Advertising **

A selection of Dublin ads from 1927. Fianna Fail, Ford and Dublin Corporation are still going, the rest are but memories.