Young Ireland: Buy Irish Campaign was a group active in second level schools and some colleges in the 1980s. It was originally founded in 1983 by Denis Craven, a teacher at Oatlands College, Stillorgan, County Dublin.
In 1992 Young Ireland was relaunched in Dublin. They published a newspaper called B.I.G ( Buy Irish Goods) which was distributed throughout secondary schools. The movement held a number of exhibitions, published articles in local media and produced a video, sponsored by Opel Ireland called The Choice. It featured interviews with the manager of Ireland's Soccer team, Jack Charlton, together with Senator Fergal Quinn of Superquinn supermarkets, Arnold o'Byrne who was Managing Director of Opel Ireland and Mr. Jim Teeling a business studies teacher at St. Josephs CBS, Fairview Dublin. It also featured interviews with students from various schools including Bannagher Secondary School, Offaly.
The aim of Young Ireland was to create jobs by urging people to buy Irish where the price and the quality was right. Organised through the educational system, it was financially backed by FAS and many Irish companies,including Superquinn, Avoca Handweavers, Fiacla Toothpaste, FAS, Opel Ireland, Lir Chocolates, Cavan Crystal, Beeline Healthcare to name but a few. It had two logos, the oldest being a circle of Y's representing people around a centre point. The latest version evoked a more Celtic, shamrock style.
The organisation closed in 1995 following a successful 3 year sponsored campaign.
Famous quotes containing the words young, buy and/or irish:
“We agree fully that the mother and unborn child demand special consideration. But so does the soldier and the man maimed in industry. Industrial conditions that are suitable for a stalwart, young, unmarried woman are certainly not equally suitable to the pregnant woman or the mother of young children. Yet “welfare” laws apply to all women alike. Such blanket legislation is as absurd as fixing industrial conditions for men on a basis of their all being wounded soldiers would be.”
—National Woman’s Party, quoted in Everyone Was Brave. As, ch. 8, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape,
My dainty duck, my dear-a?
Any silk, and thread,
And toys for your head,
Of the new’st and finest, finest wear-a?
Come to the pedlar;
Money’s a meddler,
That doth utter all men’s ware-a.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I was the rector’s son, born to the anglican order,
Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)