- Posters from the 1930s aimed to lure British tourists to Ireland.
- Great Southern Railways issued the Land of Eternal Youth poster.
- The Ulster Tourist Development Association produced the Happy Holiday poster.
- Paul Henry designed posters for the London Midland and Scottish Railway.
- The Whyte’s sale includes lots with estimates from €400 to €1,200.
Irish travel posters from the 1930s have come up for sale at Whyte’s Eclectic Collector auction. Posters issued north and south of the border aimed to attract British tourists to Ireland through differing approaches. The sale closes on 18 April.
One poster from the Free State issued by Great Southern Railways depicted a young couple with a mountain and thatched cottage in the background. The text read Ireland Land of Eternal Youth. The lot carries an estimate of €400 to €600.
Another poster from north of the border issued by the Ulster Tourist Development Association showed a young woman climbing in the mountains under the banner Ulster for a Happy Holiday. The lot holds an estimate of €600 to €800. Additional posters by Paul Henry for the London Midland and Scottish Railway and a landscape by Norman Wilkinson also feature in the sale.
J T Nugent shared “In 1926, when William Conor was commissioned to produce a tourist poster for the UTDA, he claimed that his work was intended to be as far away as possible from the conventional Irish poster of shawled peasant and whitewashed thatched cottage and brown melancholy bog.”
