IF YOU’VE EVER sat back while watching Reeling in the Years and marvelled at how curiously weird certain aspects of Irish life were back in the day – there’s some good news.

The IFI has restored and catalogued hundreds of retro Irish TV adverts from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and stuck them all up online.

It’s a goldmine of old school telly

Usually featuring jingles.

Released today, the Irish Film Institute put in some amount of work to get them back in watchable shape – as they explain:

The collection numbering nearly 8000 rolls of film, had been held in a number of damp warehouses for decades and as a result of poor storage conditions it suffered physical deterioration and contracted a mould infestation before it was transferred to the IFI Irish Film Archive in the mid-1990s. The Archive team has 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.

Now you can remember when Club Milks used to look like this

IFI IFI

And (for some reason) the ad had these two playing with a yo-yo on the beach

IFI IFI

There’s a character called Captain Crisps from the ’70s

IFI IFI

Here’s a teenage disco where everyone seems to be hooked on a soft drink called “Spike”

IFI IFI

The restoration of such ads goes even deeper than just having a gawk:

They tell us much about the community they were made for, as well as the era they were made in; reflecting the social mores, standards, dress sense, attitudes to gender, race and so on of the Ireland for which they were created. They are fascinating on many levels and can be enjoyed from a nostalgic, historical, social or cultural perspective.

And the project made the RTÉ news today as well

There are some great revelations hidden within the ads too.

Like nuns selling flour

IFI IFI

And Huzzar vodka being sold as a seriously classy drink

IFI IFI

You could get lost in the archive for hours.

There’s an army of Cadet soft drinks marching around like an army band there to greet you

IFI IFI

Amazing scenes.

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