From tins of biscuits and tobacco to packets of cheese and nylons, Brian McMahon of Brand New Retro takes a quick look at vintage adverts for Christmas gifts produced by leading Irish manufacturers.

Rent or buy? Betamax or VHS? Brian McMahon asked Greg Molloy, the man behind the KillianM2 TV Archive, to tell us more about the early days of video and this new and exciting period in home entertainment.

“Without central heating it was almost impossible to keep a home warm. The main room could have a roaring fire of coal, slack, turf or wood but the rest of the house remained cold.” – Brian McMahon, Brand New Retro

The Brand New Retro exhibition on Dublin Discos 1965-1980 goes on display at The Other Hand Bar (The Circular) 536-538, South Circular Road.

It’s ice pop weather right now so, what better time than to revisit pops from the past courtesy of Brand New Retro.

Discos first surfaced in Dublin during the beat club scene, of the mid 1960s… but the game changer came in 1968 when two young entrepreneurs, Michael Ryan and Michael Murphy opened Sloopys, a club with lavish sound and lighting dedicated to the disco, with live music coming second.

In the early 1980s, young bands like Duran Duran, ABC, Japan, Spandau Ballet, Freeze, Modern Romance and Haircut 100 stormed the Irish pop charts with a new kind of dance music. Our only successful homegrown counterparts were Tokyo Olympics, Ireland’s most famous new romantic band.

Best read while listening to a red headed woman playing a harp.

Brand New Retro collates some top tips for the perfect Christmas…

The unearthing of an old computer hard drive containing hundreds of Irish logos and designs from the Celtic Tiger era has led to the production of a new zine and t-shirt.

Brian McMahon talks Irish advert records with John Byrne the DJ, record collector, writer and archivist who put together the excellent Quare Groove compilation album in 2018.

While strolling through a deserted Dublin city centre during lockdown, Brian MacMahon bumped into barfly Ben Walsh, so naturally the conversation turned to pubs.

“While reading Surviving in a Nuclear War, I couldn’t help noticing how similar the messages were to those delivered during the Covid-19 lockdown.”

Enviro 70, four years before the Guaranteed Irish campaign, three years before we joined the EEC and 39 years before IKEA arrived in Dublin.

JWT brought affordable holidays to the masses and was the first company to advertise package holidays on Irish TV. Almost 60 years later, it is still in the travel business today.

In 1969 English entertainer and female impersonator Alan Amsby, aka Mr Pussy, Ireland’s “leading misleading lady” came to Ireland for a week and stayed forever.

This month we present a selection of vintage Christmas adverts promoting long-standing Irish food and drink brands.

On a cold Sunday afternoon in November 1975, over 10,000 people poured into the RDS show jumping arena to see The Stylistics perform at what was Ireland’s biggest ever pop concert.