It was founded by cartoonists Arthur Booth and Charles E. Kelly and writer Tom Collins, who met as amateur dramatists. Booth was its first editor, and drew the covers. Its satire was gentle and politically it steered a careful middle course. The first issue, financed by a loan from a friend of Booth and published on 1 March 1922, had a print run of 3,000 and sold out, but the second issue sold poorly. From issue 3 it was distributed by Easons and was soon selling 40,000 copies a month. When Booth died of pneumonia in 1926, Kelly, Collins and Booth's father-in-law Major Robert J. Baker formed Dublin Opinion Ltd, and Collins and Kelly took over as editors, Kelly becoming chief artist.