Hugh Hefner: A dirty old man or a great sexual liberator?

Hugh Hefner drew the ire of Christian conservatives and radical feminists alike, but many women have also said positive things about the late Playboy publisher, writes TP O’Mahony.

In September 1995, the Censorship of Publications Appeal Board lifted the ban on Playboy magazine in the Republic of Ireland, a ban that was first imposed in 1959— six years after the magazine was launched in the USA.

Two years after the scrapping of ban, a number of Playboy executives accompanied Victoria Silvstedt, the 1997 Playmate of the Year, to Dublin as part of the preparations for an edition featuring “The Girls of the Emerald Isle”.