Joe Walsh, a Co Down native, founded Joe Walsh Tours (JWT) in 1961 in a tiny Nassau Street office in Dublin. JWT started with religious pilgrimages to the likes of Lourdes, then quickly added sun holidays and became Ireland’s biggest package holiday operator in the 1960s and 1970s.

The ’70s brought fresh competition including Blueskies, Budget Travel (1975), Abbey Travel (1978), and Ray Tracey Travel (1978), fueling the sun-holiday boom that changed Irish travel forever.

JWT closed in 2021 after the pandemic but was subsequently revived and now focuses on trips to the likes of Lourdes, Fatima and the Camino De Santiago.

I hope you enjoy these ads from 1970 to 1984 all digitised by @brandnewretro except for those from 1983 and 1984, which were kindly donated to the BNR archive by Joe Gleeson.