There is more than a whiff of nostalgia in Aidan Foley’s auction at Sixmilebridge Co. Clare on August 27. The sale goes back to the days when pubs were individual rather than generic, snug refuges with open turf, log or coal fires dotted with the occasional utterly genuine conversation piece – pastiche was unheard of – and sawdust on the floor. Original contents from a number of such establishments offer rich pickings to collectors at Sixmilebridge. There is a big selection of pub memorabilia from the Murray family of Limerick. They owned nightclubs and pubs and when they added the highly traditional Scott’s Bar in Kilkee to their portfolio they retained many original contents.Some of these are included in this 1,200 auction which is, Aidan Foley promises, “original stuff”, the kind of thing that collectors go for. A fine framed advertisement for Michael Egan’s finest Irish whiskey, Limerick, Ireland is redolent of an earlier age. Aidan Foley will include some original Cunard Line luggage label stickers from a long gone travel agency, a nostalgia tinged memory of the days when people left Ireland on ocean liners never to return. An early U2 Tick Tock Tour poster will attract a different sort of collector.
