Irish television adverts preserved, digitised and viewable
- Published
The Irish Film Institute (IFI) has unveiled a collection of restored television adverts from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The IFI described the adverts as "a rich treasure trove of national memory and cultural artefacts".
The project, which involved the preservation and digitisation of the adverts, took 18 months to complete at a cost of 362,000 Euro (£307,000).
Over 200 adverts are available to view on the institute's website.
The collection, numbering nearly 8,000 rolls of film, had suffered physical deterioration and contracted a mould infestation after been held in damp warehouses for decades before being transferred to the IFI's archive in the mid-1990s.
The IFI's archive team "salvaged this material, through a combination of painstaking processes including frame-by-frame assessment, extensive physical and chemical conservation, followed by scanning and digital restoration".
IFI director Ross Keane said: "This project has been a huge undertaking for the organisation, and we are particularly pleased to be able to share the results with the public through our new IFI Player."
Michael O'Keeffe, CEO of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), which supported the project financially, added: "The preservation aspects of the project, together with the historical and cultural value of the advertising material, are commendable.
"It epitomises the aims of the BAI's archiving scheme by contributing to the preservation of Ireland's broadcasting heritage, and record of Irish culture.'