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.

Described in 1969 as a ‘trend setting development’, the Phibsborough Centre celebrates its 50th birthday this month.

The work of Joanne Betty Conlon reflects her love for old neglected buildings and objects combined with a desire to preserve and revitalise them.

Vernon Dewhurst, the photographer responsible for David Bowie’s Space Oddity album cover spent a year working as an advertising and fashion photographer in Dublin. He shares his memory of his time here with Brian McMahon of Brand New Retro.

Graham Keogh knows a lot about football shirts – he has hundreds. Not replicas, but actual shirts worn by players including the likes of Best, Cantona and Barnes.

Inspired by running a late-night club during the Dublin Theatre Festival, Fergus Murphy and Paul Rooney launched Saturday Night at the Gaiety in November 1993.

Dubliner Sharon Kane is the creator of Sweet Jane, an outstanding pop culture website which specialises in digitising and republishing original print content from the 1960s and 1970s.

Heat championed young local bands and energised the exciting new wave music scene that exploded in Ireland in the late 1970s.

Pat Egan revisits some questions 50 years later!