The Project

This project, funded by the generous support of the Leverhulme Trust, addresses a fascinating but relatively neglected topic: the historical and literary resonance of consumer culture and advertising in Ireland between 1848, the year of the Famine, and 1921, the year which saw the signing of the treaty which led to the formation of the Irish Free State.

Alongside detailed consideration of the cultural significance of advertising copy in the period, both amongst nationalist and unionist constituencies, the project will also look at the way in which literary figures such as James Joyce, W. B. Yeats and others reacted to the nascent commercial culture around them.

The project team is based at the Universities of Durham and Sunderland.

To see a lecture by Professor John Strachan of the University of Sunderland, the leading cultural historian of advertising in the United Kingdom and Ireland, introducing the project, click here.