I recently took possession of a collection of beermats, dating from at least the mid 1960s (based on there being Time mats) to the mid 00s - mats I remember being current in my drinking era as well as specific 2003 Rugby World Cup ones.
These will provide some much needed content on here and on Instagram for the next while, considering the lack of pubs left for me to visit; and the exceptionally limited number of new openings there have been so far in 2026 (and with little expected to come soon).
One thing that struck me was the number of cases of the mat being a competition advertisement (and often, but not in this case, an actual entry form), mostly in the first half of the 1980s. And while a lot of these were for prize draws - tickets to events, holidays, and electronics being the common prizes - one particularly stood out.
Harp Lager, which has started to reappear in Dublin's pubs in recent years (particularly after Diageo lost the Budweiser brewing contract to C&C), was a dominant player in the lager market in Ireland for decades, but by the 1980s was beginning to lose market share to other lagers, particularly those being brewed by Beamish in Cork (who produced Carling, Miller and at one point, Carlsberg under licence). I am assuming this is what lead to a significant marketing campaign, which most people remember for one line in the TV advert:
"and Sally O'Brien, and the way she might look at you"
Guinness Ltd then decided to see if they could find a case where Sally looked like you, launching a Sally O'Brien lookalike contest, with a regional heat format.
The contest was launched by Vicki Michelle - the original Sally you needed to look like - in March 1983, with five regional winners to be decided. There was a very strange system where the person who sent in the winning entry won as much as the actual winner for each region, a then substantial £500 (around €1900 currency converted and inflated). Vicki was one of the judges, along with Harp's marketing director, and the award winning creator of the Harp ad, along with other noted Guinness advertising. The overall prize was a trip for two to Hollywood, plus £1000 (€3800).
The contest was heavily advertised in the press, and the regional winners were all pushed in adverts in their regional papers once selected. These winners were:
Dublin: Catherine Keane
Limerick: Aileen O'Sullivan
Cork: Eileen Galvin
Galway: Geraldine Holmes
Waterford: Deirdre O'Brien
Catherine Keane won the overall award, a quite convincing lookalike based on the photos. Catherine was a teacher in Navan at the time and I presume remained at that profession, rather than becoming a waitress in a French bistro as Vicki Michelle had since become vastly more famous for than for appearing in a beer ad.
Evening Herald, May 12th, 1983
Occasional unofficial lookalike contests get organised for various celebrities to this day; but I seriously doubt we'd ever see a brewery doing such a thing again. Indeed, modern regulations (statutory and voluntary alike) on alcohol advertising mean the chances of their being a known named character in an ad to begin with. I also don't think the submitter prize would really wash these days - the women were the stars here, and giving an equal amount to someone else for posting in a photo is at best pointless.
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