The marketing device of giving away free decorative cards on various themes in packages of rolling tobacco and cigarettes, to encourage sales, began in the United States in the late nineteenth century. Sports and theatrical personalities, birds and animals, motor cars, trains and aeroplanes, in numbered series, were among the subjects featured. This strategy was later extended to sweet cigarettes – sugar replicas of cigarettes, with red tips, packaged like real cigarettes for sale to children.

In the 1960s the Dublin sweets firm of Liam Devlin & Sons issued at least two undated series of sweet cigarette cards. The second series ‘Irish Theatre and Showband Stars’ (36 cards in all, issued in 1967) is in the ITMA collections; each card consists of an image with a biographical note on the reverse. In spite of its title, the series also includes contemporary ballad singers and ballad groups, a stepdancer, a harper, a traditional cabaret group, a showband that showcased Irish traditional music, and a ceili band.