This article explores how McClinton's Colleen Soap used the figure of the colleen to craft Irishness in its marketing through advertisements in the British and Irish press (1910-1923). Using visual social semiotic analysis, it examines the co-deployment of language, image, colour, typography, layout and composition to articulate and negotiate representations of Irishness and its evolution over time. Ultimately, it reveals the various ways in which Irish identity was self-fashioned and presented to both British and Irish audiences, drawing on contemporary political issues and the concept of "civilised whiteness," thus demonstrating the fluid, fragile and sometimes fictitious nature of national identity. McClinton's Colleen Soap, therefore, serves as a rich case study for examining how Irishness was continuously reinvented, reimagined and remarketed, and how a small Ulster company navigated its relationship with the British Empire during a turbulent period in its history.