The best Christmas ad on Irish tv

[LadyEloise1]

My vote goes to the SuperValu one with the baby deer with the sore leg, where the young girl and her family nurse him back to health. She urges him to fly "home" because he's needed by Santa at Christmas.,

Ah I like the Woodies one when the elderly woman gets her gste fixed by lads who look like 'trouble'

The SuperValu ad gets me everytime I see it. Lump in throat. Tear in eye.

That girl is a brilliant actress. Quick someone put her in a film!

I like the Spar one which is the same every year 🌲

@Pegasussnail

Ah I like the Woodies one when the elderly woman gets her gste fixed by lads who look like 'trouble'

That is a gorgeous ad, am always happy to see ads that don't feature winsome children or nuclear families!

Or people turning up unexpectedly for Christmas!

I like the Supervalu advert with Deermuid the deer and the McDonald's one too.

The worst is the TKMaxx advert.

I have a soft spot for the very old ESB ad with the Dusty Springfield soundtrack. from the 80s, where the Dad drives the returning son home through the countryside past the world’s sinister rural disco and the mammy bakes up a storm and turns on the immersion.

@Negligee

I have a soft spot for the very old ESB ad with the Dusty Springfield soundtrack. from the 80s, where the Dad drives the returning son home through the countryside past the world’s sinister rural disco and the mammy bakes up a storm and turns on the immersion.

That's a young Alan Hughes in that advert.

I love that song on the ESB ad.
I put it on my playlist.

The old train homecoming one is lovely, and the Barry's tea toy train on the radio as well with the soft whistle.

So far, SuperValu is the best this year, but I am liking seeing the woodies one returning.

Though it always occurs to me that, given the age of the Alan Hughes character in the ad, his parents could easily be in their 40s, rather than the Sweet White-Haired Mammy in an Apron. Which may say a lot about Ireland’s ideas about motherhood in the 80s.

I absolutely adore that shot where Baby Alan Hughes and his dad drive past the deserted phone box on the side of the country road.

Maybe it’s because I spent the guts of 30 years away and doing mad things to get home at Christmas, but I am a total sucker for that ad.

I always assumed it was his grandparents!

@Negligee

Though it always occurs to me that, given the age of the Alan Hughes character in the ad, his parents could easily be in their 40s, rather than the Sweet White-Haired Mammy in an Apron. Which may say a lot about Ireland’s ideas about motherhood in the 80s.

I absolutely adore that shot where Baby Alan Hughes and his dad drive past the deserted phone box on the side of the country road.

Maybe it’s because I spent the guts of 30 years away and doing mad things to get home at Christmas, but I am a total sucker for that ad.

Dubious gender politics aside, it is a beautiful and very Irish ad, all the themes are there. And the song choice is perfection, few singers have ever been able to convey more feeling in a song than Dusty Springfield (aka Mary O'Brien, you don't get much more Irish than that! )

I think they’re definitely meant to be his parents — the mammy is in his childhood bedroom looking at his kiddie GAA triumphs. I mean, not that they couldn’t be older parents, chronologically — DH and I are almost 40 years older than our DS — it’s more the iconography of apple-cheeked white-haired lady in apron. When DS is twenty and I’m 60 I will almost certainly still be wearing biker boots and have long hair.

I still love it, and agree about the Dusty Springfield song.

I like the Woodies ad too.

@Negligee

I think they’re definitely meant to be his parents — the mammy is in his childhood bedroom looking at his kiddie GAA triumphs. I mean, not that they couldn’t be older parents, chronologically — DH and I are almost 40 years older than our DS — it’s more the iconography of apple-cheeked white-haired lady in apron. When DS is twenty and I’m 60 I will almost certainly still be wearing biker boots and have long hair.

I still love it, and agree about the Dusty Springfield song.

I like the Woodies ad too.

That was the look of the time too though. I see photos of my mother when she was the age I am now and she'd give Peig Sayers a run for her money: tight perm, grey hair, headscarf, pleated skirt, etc. She dresses way more trendily now in her 70s. Even young people in the 80s dressed much older than they were, if you see some Top of the Pops from the time, lots of the crowd - who presumably were amongst the trendiest people - look like 40 something accountants. But you're right, the sheer mammyness of it was definitely of it's time.

I love the music in the Spar one with The Raveonettes "The Christmas Song".
I got that for my playlist too.

The Barry's Tea radio ad with the mellifluous voice of the late Peter Caffrey and the train set is lovely too @BiddyPop.
Really brings me back....

That’s absolutely true, @theleafandnotthetree. My mother is 76 and definitely dresses younger than she did at my age (49). Though I suspect she remains perturbed by my long hair, even if she no longer feels a blue rinse is mandatory.

I like the old Guinness ‘white Christmas’ ad where snow falls on Dublin.

@Negligee when that Guinness ad ( Home of the Black Stuff ) appears on tv I know it's Christmas. Love the music on it.

@JaneJeffer I'm the opposite i have to turn off if that ad comes on. I find the little girl painfully annoying