Advertisements like the one above for The Indian Store were quite commonplace in 1930s newspapers, appearing not only in An Phoblacht and the republican media, but also in mainstream publications like the Irish Press. The Indian Store sold a variety of produce inspired by India, or in some cases imported from the country. This advertisement is interesting because it attempts to ride the wave of the ‘Boycott British’ movement at the time, something we’ve looked at on the site before, in a feature on the ‘Boycott Bass’ campaign.
Republican newspapers gave very significant coverage to Indian affairs at the time, with An Phoblacht proclaiming in June 1933 that “the terror of the Tans, hidden from the eyes of the world, is sweeping over India. Indian revolutionaries, jailed for their activities, against British rule, protesting against their treatment by hunger strike, have been killed by forcible feeding.” Sympathy for Indian nationalism had existed in Irish nationalist circles long prior to the 1930s. Helena Molony, in a detailed statement to the Bureau of Military History about her involvement in revolutionary politics, remembered that the women’s group Inghinidhe na hÉireann had flypostered Dublin with posters in honour of Indian nationalist Madan Lal Dhingra, who was executed for assassinating a British official in 1909. From the gallows, Madan Lal Dhingra stated that “I believe that a nation held down by foreign bayonets is in a perpetual state of war.” He was executed at Pentonville Prison, the same prison where Roger Casement was hanged in 1916.
Back to the advertisement. This image of Maud Gonne MacBride was taken around the same time this ad appeared in the media, in the early 1930s. It should be noted that while her placard simply calls on passersby to “Boycott British Goods”, another placard is visible behind her expressing solidarity with India.
Maud Gonne MacBride protesting on O’Connell Bridge in the early 1930s.
The shop appears to have been based on Moore Street for a period in the 1930s, a street that today includes multiple Indian restaurants and international shops. The most interesting reference to the shop I can find in the archives comes from the Irish Press in May 1933, who reported that the owner of the shop was a relative of Gandhi:
