An English travel writer in 1934 suggested that he would publicise Ireland by showing how it was different from England: “I would show green pillar-boxes, the Irish Tricolour flag, anything that was different ... My posters would show an Ireland that was a foreign country”
John Gibbons, writing in The Spectator in April 1934, agreed, while also offering marketing advice to the Irish:
"In modern Ireland we have Queenstown becoming Cobh and Kingstown turning into Dun Laoghaire with the English version as a sort of footnote for the benefit of the old-fashioned Saxon tourist. There are places like Bray and Bundoran and Tramore, seaside resorts with a social atmosphere completely different from their English counterparts. To the Englishman, the Irish watering-place is as foreign as Dinard or Knocke.
"If I did Irish ads for English hoardings, I would almost leave out mountains, lakes and ruined abbeys ... I would show a dancing platform at a crossroads or an Irish train with the Gaelic lettering of its destination board. I would show green pillar-boxes, the Irish Tricolour flag, anything that was different ... My posters would show an Ireland that was a foreign country.