Come Here To Me!

It all began with the excellent ‘Shops Of Dublin’ image left on our Facebook page by Declan, a reader. The image, a mock-up of the ever-popular Dublin shopfronts poster which hangs of the wall of so many city centre boozers, highlights the fact that where family names once gazed down today you find a city of Spars,Centras and the like.

The image came from atoast2toast, where one finds an excellent explanation piece from the designer noting that “The Ireland of today is still marketed as the land of Joycean splendor and unique indigenous character, but as I sat in a pub looking at the assorted prefabricated tat on the wall, an old crumpled yellowed poster of the ‘shops of Dublin’ struck me as particularly out of time…….”

Sitting in The Stag’s Head yesterday, a conversation around the poster developed. Branno, an occasional commentator on the site here and in the past responsible for plenty of donated content, had a rather genius idea: Imagine someone in Carroll’s began printing the below, the adult shops of Dublin, flogging it to tourist and native publication alike.

It was too funny an idea not to have a go, and so, I give to you, Na Siopaí Salach. Enjoy.