Alison Healy outlines Irish life in 1972 - the news, preoccupations and purchasing habits of consumers, as reflected in The Irish Times
In an era before Lotto millionaires, the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes was promoting its "one super prize" of £200,000 (€254,000).
But don't scoff. Back then, £200,000 could buy quite a lot. Hooke & McDonald was advertising a four-bedroom detached bungalow on Grove Avenue, off Mount Merrion, for £15,500. Over in Castleknock, a five-bedroom detached house with two bathrooms on Park Road was on the market for £18,000 to £20,000.
In fact, even Dáil deputies would have been happy with a Sweepstakes win. Early in 1982, they were earning £2,500.
Back then, an architect was being sought in Dublin for an annual salary of £3,000, with the added bonus of a free car and a share in profits.
A new, 4.2-litre Jaguar X16 would have set you back more than £4,300 in December 1972. For the more modest motorists, a nine-year old Ford Anglia was advertised for £75, while a four-year-old Volkswagen Viva estate cost £565.
In 1982, your copy of The Irish Times would have cost 6p. Had you bought it, you would have spotted full-page advertisements for cigarettes, including lists of the airlines that sold the brands advertised.
At that time, a box of charcoal filtered Springfields would have set you back 23p.
A pint of Guinness to go with a cigarette would have cost 18p. But there was a minor crisis for Guinness drinkers in Limerick during the Christmas of 1972, when pubs were forced to ration supplies, following a surge in demand. Some publicans put up "regular customers only" signs after more than 630,000 pints were sold in the county.
Yes, indeed, it was a different era. The Shelbourne Hotel was offering a £25 reward to the finder of a fur coat which had been lost somewhere between Connolly Station and the hotel. If you wanted to invest in fur, the Barnado's fur sale was offering mink coats from £395 and dyed squirrel coats from £175.
And if you decided to take yourself and your fur coat to the theatre in June 1972, you could have chosen between Beginning to End, directed by one Sam Beckett, at the Gaiety, and Brendan Behan's Richard's Cork Leg, which was drawing the crowds at the Olympia.
That summer, the offerings from cinemas included Anthony and Cleopatra, Carry On At Your Convenience, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
But you might have opted to stay at home - as those new-fangled colour televisions were beginning to catch on. A new 26-inch set would have cost you £250, but given that secretarial staff were earning from £16 to £20 a week, many opted to rent a colour television for £1.75 per week.
Had you done so, you could have watched Hall's Pictorial Weekly, 7 Days or Féach. Chief Ironside was at the height of his investigative career while the Black and White Minstrels hadn't yet realised how politically incorrect they were.
Watership Down by Richard Adams was published in 1972, and was perceptively described by Irish Times reviewer A. Kingsmill Moore as "an extraordinary book which will join the classics". For those rooted firmly in reality, Conor and Máire Cruise O'Brien's Concise History of Ireland cost £2.62½p.
People did not rise as early then, with Radio Éireann awaking the nation with Morning Airs at 7.30 a.m. Topping the hit parade in 1972 were Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again (Naturally) and Don McClean's American Pie.
If you felt like a holiday in 1972, eight days full-board in Majorca would have cost £41. The Whit weekend in the the Downhill Hotel in Ballina would have set you back £6.50, from Friday dinner until Sunday lunch.
It was a gentle era. In June, The Irish Times faithfully reported that Bean de Valera, wife of the president, had celebrated her 94th birthday. She attended Mass with her husband that morning and received hundreds of telegrams and letters of congratulations.
And it was still a holy era. Maynooth seminary saw the ordination of 34 priests in June 1972. Last year, just 12 were ordained.
Back in 1972, letter-writers to The Irish Times were getting exercised about topics such as drink-driving, prison conditions and the Irish language. It's reassuring to know that some things never change.