'THE Young Lady Says No!', 'What To Do on a Date?',
'Shall I Be a Nun?', 'Divorce is a Disease!' and 'Shall I Start to
Drink?'
The questions may seem a little quaint now, but the titles will
be familiar to the older generation who will remember the racks of
Catholic Truth Society pamphlets in the foyers of Catholic churches in
Ireland in the 1940s, '50s and '60s.
The booklet covers were
striking, provocative, even faintly titillating.
They were designed to
be "modern", to catch the attention of the young faithful, promising to
answer their questions about sexuality, spirituality and life in
general.
Inside the covers, however, was the same old conservative message.
Many of the authors were priests, doing their best to be "modern" and usually not succeeding.
While
the booklets seemed to be about life in some parallel universe, they
were very popular.
In 1951 alone, 1,250,000 pamphlets were circulated in
Ireland, selling at three old pennies each. Whatever about the message
inside, the striking covers clearly worked.
VIBRANT
The
best of these covers – 117 high quality images with notes on the
artists – have now been showcased in an art book which will be published
next week by Veritas titled 'Vintage Values'.
The book will appeal to Catholics nostalgic for the old days.
But it will also appeal to be those interested in graphic design and comic book art.
Bold,
bright and vibrant, the covers rejected the usual symbols of Catholic
nationalism – Celtic interlace, shamrocks and harps – in favour of
contemporary American showcard art and typography.
The artists who
produced the covers were among the best commercial artists of the day in
Ireland.
The Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, founded in 1899, produced the pamphlets from the 1920s to the early 1970s.