Open the Archives Intro: Irish Life through Newspaper Advertisements

Welcome to the third iteration of #OpentheArchives! Meet Mazie Smallidge, an MA candidate in Museum Studies at University College Cork. She spent the month of June at the National Print Museum, familiarising herself with the archive of printed works. She selected a group of five items to showcase, which we will be sharing over the coming weeks. Keep an eye out on the Archive page for the latest posts.

Here’s a sneak peek of what Mazie chose to focus on: ‘In the archives of the National Print Museum is a collection of Irish newspapers which spans the better part of two centuries. As I flipped through these newspapers, I found myself drawn to the advertisements which countless Irish people might have read past as they drank their morning tea, probably filtering them out just as I do with the ads on my phone or billboards around me. While at first I was drawn to the visual aspects of these ads – how the fonts and illustrations might reflect their time – I found that they also gave a look into the parts of life that even readers at the time may have taken for granted. The five advertisements which I decided to research for the Open The Archives project span from 1894 to 1950 and reflect this turbulent period of Irish history. From the Easter Rising to post-Emergency economics, family farms to sham medicines, these ads touch on many aspects of day-to-day life through the 60 year period they cover.’