Anyone remember being petrified by this advert??

Anyone remember being petrified by this advert?? from ireland

41 comments
  1. Man, this brings back memories……

    Couldn’t even hear the song without remembering the ad for years.

    This was around the same time Gerry Adams could only appear on TV as a silhouette, and even his voice had to be overdubbed with an actors voice….. rev Ian Paisley never seemed to have to be censored though.

  2. I was on my way out to join the Ra when this ad popped on the TV. Instead I went drunk driving down to the quarry for a swim and then on to fly my kite around some powerlines.

  3. One of the most powerful PIFs ever made. The whole confidential telephone ad series is quite good.

  4. It was a good ad. It was on TV in the early 90s shortly before the ceasefires. Seems crazy the the paramilitaries in the North were still doing their crazy thing as recently as the 1990s.

  5. I was very young and in general wouldn’t have the best memory for that long ago but I remember this well. It was scary that I even understood it to the extent that I did.

  6. Aye, remember it well. I was only a kid myself when I first seen it. I remember telling a bunch of English work colleagues about these adverts and anti-drink driving ones (“it was the one without the seatbelt that did all the damage….”) – they looked at me like I had five heads.

    We were clearly exposed to graphic stuff nobody else was 😅

  7. I’m almost 40, lived in Ireland all my life and this is the first time I’ve seen this… What is it even for? Some sort of Crime stoppers campaign?

  8. I didn’t know the paramilitaries advertised on TV like this.

    Not sure they’ve entirely sold the lifestyle choice for me though.

  9. Jesus. Any wonder we’re all basketcases.

    I remember bawling my eyes out at this anytime it came on and being afraid to go anywhere with my da incase he got shot… I was 5 lol.

  10. From this masterpiece to ads of Aviva dancing doctors and the lotto with it’s weird slide obsession…where did it go wrong lads?

  11. To this day, any time I hear that song all I see is leather gloves on a coffin! Effective advertising or what!

  12. That’s a brilliant ad, and they’re dead right. Violence perpetuates violence.

    Love the song too. My brother used to listen to the cover version by Ugly Kid Joe

  13. I could hear the part of the song “cats and the cradle” as soon as I clicked the link. Scared the beejaysus out of me. Not least because any time my father or anyone else’s did anything I thought they’d get blasted with a machine gun. Fun times. How was this on the tv?!

  14. They could have just had him spray the chap and end the scene there but they go the full hog with him running up for the double tap and all beside the kid.

  15. The hyprocrisy of the NI State spending thousands putting these ad’s out while at the same time paying death squads thousands of pounds to murder and terrorise.

  16. I remember it very well, would have been on a video recording we had of some kids movie. Between that and Jim McDonald off Coronation Street, Northern accents would give me a bit of a fright

  17. My main memory of that ad is asking my ma how the man died at the end. And her saying the IRA got him.

    And watching it back it’s very clear she was right. The family in this are all clearly loyalists

  18. I was only listening to this song on Sunday, singing it to my baby. Ugly kid joes version always reminds me of this advert ( even though it’s not the same version) and amazed it was on TV when we were growing up! Absolutely wild!!!

  19. Glad I’m not alone. This and that one advert with all the body’s on the road cover in black blankets were the two I never forgot.

  20. This ad is 100% responsible for my irrational fear of being randomly murdered. Seriously. It terrified me then, and still haunts me today.

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