Hugh Hefner
Three decades are about to pass since the ban on the iconic American lad’s mag was lifted by Ireland’s Censorship of Publications Board.
Five years after its 1953 launch in the States there had never been a single sighting of Playboy on open sale in an Irish store. This didn’t deter some vigilant souls from lodging complaints against the magazine with the five-man Censorship of Publications Board. Playboy was duly banned in 1958. When the ban expired in 1959, it was banned again.
It took 42 years for Playboy magazine the biggest-selling men’s magazine in the world to gain a beautifully pedicured foothold in Ireland.
But for such a massive brand, it’s hard to believe that only three decades ago, it was on the list of banned publications. Officially deemed too explicit for Catholic Ireland, for years it was outlawed.
By the turn of the millennium, Playboy was shifting nearly 10,000 copies per month this side of the Atlantic – making it the most popular import after Time and Newsweek.
By 2001 a newsagent in Kilgarvan, Co Kerry, was shifting 50 copies a month.
As is often the case, when there’s a rise, a fall soon follows, and that proved to be true for the empire that was Playboy magazine.
The rise of the internet, smartphones and limitless online pornography meant Hugh Hefner and his print-industry imitators had ultimately been outpaced by the march of liberal reform they’d started.
On this episode of The Indo Daily, Tabitha Monaghan is joined by John Meagher to look to look at Ireland’s tricky relationship with Playboy Magazine and the rise and fall of the lads mag…