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Old Irish ads from the past 50 years are free to view online from today

The Irish Film Institute have been working to restore almost 8,000 rolls of film that had been damaged by mould.

IFI archive adverts JACOBS: CLUB SHORTCAKE JACOBS: CLUB SHORTCAKE

THOUSANDS OF ROLLS of archived Irish film has been restored and made available to view for free online today.

The Irish Film Institute’s Irish Film Archive, supported by a grant from the Archiving Funding Scheme, has catalogued, digitised, restored and preserved a large collection of 35mm film television advertisements made in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

These commercials were made for broadcast on Irish television by a number of prolific Irish advertising agencies including Wilson Hartnell, Birchall, Hunter, and Arks, for a variety of Irish and international corporations.

The advert archives include a cartoon singing about Jacob’s biscuits, a trippy Aer Lingus snippet, and a short and snappy ad for Sudocrem with the tagline ‘A great friend of the family’.

Restoring film reel

Pennys Ad for Pennys from the 1970s. PENNYS / IFI Player PENNYS / IFI Player / IFI Player

The collection, numbering nearly 8,000 rolls of film, had been held in a number of damp warehouses for decades and, as a result of poor storage conditions, had suffered physical deterioration and contracted a mould infestation before it was transferred to the IFI Irish Film Archive in the mid-1990s.

The IFI Irish Film Archive team has salvaged this material, through a combination of painstaking processes including frame-by-frame assessment, extensive physical and chemical conservation, followed by scanning and digital restoration.

The collection has also been catalogued and preserved according to international best practice, thus safeguarding it for the future and making it widely accessible for the first time.

This project has resulted in the creation of a substantial Irish TV advertising archive of leading brands ranging from Cadbury to Calor, and promotional films for state organisations such as Dublin Corporation, and the ESB (Coras Iompar Éireann’s ad Miles Cheaper is particularly convincing).

According to the IFI:

These films may be only seconds long but, taken together, they provide a unique window into Irish society and consumer habits over the course of three decades.
They tell us much about the community they were made for, as well as the era they were made in, reflecting an Ireland of very different social mores, standards, dress sense, and attitudes to gender and race.
Fascinating on many levels, they can be enjoyed from a nostalgic, historical, social or cultural perspective.

Over 200 adverts are available to view now on the IFI Player.

Read: ‘Stop daydreaming’: Public service films and bizarre ads from the Ireland of decades past

Pictures: New online archive gives public access to Dublin’s visual history

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55 Comments
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    Mute bacoxy
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    Aug 15th 2015, 6:00 PM

    I wish them the best of luck, really funny and well observed shorts.

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    Mute Micheal S. O' Ceilleachair
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    Aug 15th 2015, 7:11 PM

    Skinny jeans!

    219
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    Mute Ronan Stokes
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    Aug 15th 2015, 9:14 PM

    I wonder how John is gettin on with the Iraqi?

    144
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    Mute Conor Power
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    Aug 15th 2015, 6:03 PM

    Only complaint I have is that there are not a few more episodes!

    481
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    Mute Figo murphy
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    Aug 15th 2015, 6:23 PM

    More episodes please.

    Hilarious stuff

    292
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    Mute Supernova
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    Aug 15th 2015, 6:09 PM

    This and Sminky Shorts are very good.I dont know would the yanks get it though.

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    Mute The Girl
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    Aug 15th 2015, 6:01 PM

    It’s times like that I’m proud to be Irish..

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    Mute Aaron Kavanagh
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    Aug 15th 2015, 6:59 PM

    I love Martin’s Life!

    I wonder if people outside of Ireland would get the humour, though.

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    Mute Jess Foley
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    Aug 15th 2015, 6:31 PM

    hilarious

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    Mute Anthony John Cotter
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    Aug 15th 2015, 6:44 PM

    Love the four, we need to roar for more.

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    Mute Fiona Wederfoort
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    Aug 15th 2015, 8:23 PM

    ‘A couple of what?’ ‘A couple of gay people!!’ HILARIOUS….we need more!!!!

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    Mute Mac L0ve
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    Aug 15th 2015, 9:18 PM

    How could you not hear “game of throws”?

    94
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    Mute Boxer Alice
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    Aug 15th 2015, 8:28 PM

    Martin’s Life is just so funny! Whoever writes it deserves an award of some kind. I do feel only an Irish audience would get it though, but nothing wrong with that!

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    Mute Larry David the 2nd
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    Aug 15th 2015, 10:05 PM

    “Tis’nt it well for them the bisexuals ”

    I bloody love this series!

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    Mute Michael O'connor
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    Aug 15th 2015, 7:37 PM

    Very funny. good luck with it lads

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    Mute molly coddled
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    Aug 15th 2015, 8:40 PM

    Brilliant, hope you do incredibly well.

    51
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    Mute Louise Morris
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    Aug 15th 2015, 7:10 PM

    Too funny, my tummy aches. The only other laugh I got like this is for David O’ Doherty (comedian) . Check him out on you tube if you need more laughs like this. I love being Irish and our accents are the best !

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    Mute Paul Morrissey
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    Aug 15th 2015, 8:57 PM

    it’s a small world!!!!!!!

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    Mute eoin o mahony
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    Aug 18th 2015, 8:36 PM
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    Mute sonny red
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    Aug 16th 2015, 2:17 AM

    Jaysus,those dwarfs are comical.I wonder do they get paid.

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    Mute Cheeto Ballsack
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    Aug 15th 2015, 11:17 PM

    This is brilliant

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    Mute Elizabeth Rohan Lenihan
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    Aug 16th 2015, 2:26 AM

    Absolutely love Martin’ Life. Can’t wait for more. My 91 year old mother loves them too!!

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    Mute sonny red
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    Aug 16th 2015, 2:10 AM

    He’s watching a game of throws,with that small fella and mcully culkin.hahaha

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    Mute Sean O'Malley
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    Aug 15th 2015, 7:04 PM

    youtube search: morning after night in coppers

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    Mute Stephen Mullan
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    Aug 15th 2015, 10:45 PM

    Thing is anyone can make those cartoons. They’re on a package you buy online for €9.99 a month. You just pick your characters, hair colour, clothes etc and put your voice to it. So to say he’s too lazy to do more of them just makes you think. How lazy is he?

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    Mute Laithbheartaigh
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    Aug 16th 2015, 12:48 PM

    ignorance is bliss to some people i guess, over the top superlatives!

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    Mute Laithbheartaigh
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    Aug 16th 2015, 12:29 PM

    This is done using GoAnimate software and is not hard to do, its the script thats the hard thing, which is very funny in this case.

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