A full decade before Ireland joined the E.E.C., cartoonist J.M. McCarthy filed this vision of the Irish capital’s cosmopolitan future in a 1962 issue of Dublin Opinion.
The scene is Henry Street — renamed “Henri” of course — leading up to Nelson’s Pillar in O’Connell Street and the wags show dear old dirty Dublin transformed into a polyglot European capital.
Advertisements and shop signs are in every language (except Irish), the Gardaí have adopted a képi as their headgear, the currency is the “common mark”, and a stylish young woman with bare arms steals the show and sets the tone.
The European Economic Community finally admitted Ireland as a member in 1973, by which time Nelson had be blown up and Dublin Opinion ceased publication.