Free Irish Air

Pan American Airways wanted a travel ad on Ireland. The J. Walter Thompson agency, digging through travel folders, liked some lines attributed to George Bernard Shaw: "I was lost in dreams in Ireland; one cannot work in a place where there is such infinite peace."

Knowing Shaw was a hard man with a dollar, the agency's London office thought Shaw's endorsement might be obtained by "a combination of audacity and a large sum of money" ($4,000 was suggested). New York suggested London try "audacity ... leaving the money for him to bring up." Audacity worked. Shaw first repudiated the quote--it was "manifest nonsense," he said, to call Ireland a land of peace--then he composed a substitute:

There is no magic like that of Ireland, There are no skies like Irish skies, There is no air like Irish air, The Irish climate will make the stiffest and slowest mind flexible jor life.

When the complete ad was sent to him for approval, Shaw touched up the copywriter's prose, making Dublin an "architecturally noble metropolis." And up to last week, with the ad ready to run, Copywriter Shaw had not even mentioned the matter of payment.

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