Prior to the Rural Electrification Scheme, ESB published a variety of explanatory pamphlets in the 1920s and 30s to educate the Irish public on the relatively new concept of electricity. The selection of pamphlets contained in the library below are beautifully illustrated, portraying an electric home as a modern home, a symbol of prosperity, and the mark of a ‘good housewife’.
Pamphlet library: 1920s-30s
This 1920s pamphlet, ‘Aids to Beauty in Distress’, was the first of a series of pamphlets published by ESB ‘presenting the uses of electricity in the home’.
It outlines ‘the path to the home of a hundred comforts’, which begins with one step — the acquisition of an electric iron.
Click on any pamphlet cover in this library to open, or to download PDF
View more pamphlets
Click here to view a selection of public relations pamphlets published in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, during the roll out of the Rural Electrification Scheme.