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OVER THE PAST few years, a number of accounts dedicated to documenting old signage around Ireland have cropped up on Instagram.
One of these is @our.type. The brainchild of graphic designer Trevor Finnegan, Our Type shares photos of traditional shopfronts around the country.
Finnegan attributes his passion for old type to his father’s penchant for collecting old enamel signage.
“These were then displayed on the back of garage where we all used to play football growing up. So my fascination with typography was subconsciously starting to take place as we kicked a football against the walls,” he explains.
“The familiar face of many of our towns and villages was beginning to change,” says Finnegan.
As a country, we really have a beautiful and unique style to our traditional shopfront, and we are in real danger of losing this as we continue to let our towns be taken over by these cheap shops with little regard to how our towns are losing their unique style and starting to look the exact same as each other.
I think it is important to capture the nostalgia as many of these places have played such important roles in the society of local towns in Ireland.
“I definitely have a few favourites – such as Doran’s drapers shop in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork,” he says. “It is probably not the most traditional but I just love the quirkiness of the signage and the 3D structure of it.”
I just hope that there is more protection on them as our economy is now beginning to grow again and the building boom is back. I hope we don’t start making the same mistakes as before.
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