Thanks to peteb at Slugger O’Toole - I came across this link(which then led me into a web of links – I can’t stop clicking!!) about the history of censorship in Ireland.
The Committee on Evil Literature was appointed by the Minister for Justice, Kevin O’Higgins, on 12 February 1926, to consider and report whether it is necessary or advisable in the interest of the public morality to extend the existing powers of the State to prohibit or restrict the sale and circulation of printed matter (1). In establishing this departmental committee, the Minister was yielding to mounting public pressure which disagreed with his statement to Dáil Éireann in October 1925, stating that existing laws were adequate to deal with the sale and distribution of obscene literature and that it was not possible for the state to interfere or to decide what the public could read with propriety (2).
They actually called it “The Committee on Evil Literature”. Hmmm … so let me guess? You guys are going to be open-minded about what you allow into the country?
Really interesting stuff there on the National Archive site.
A recent radio show on Radio 3 focused on The Committee on Evil Literature. Here is the review in The Guardian (scroll all the way down). Interesting. A nice quote from John McGahern (AWESOME Irish novelist – one of my favorite contemporary Irish writers – thanks, Dad, for making me read him!)
This Ireland was, said novelist John McGahern, “a kind of crazy place: it was childish and anything foreign was rejected”. When Yeats was awarded the Nobel prize for literature, the Catholic Bulletin denounced the prize as “the substantial sum provided by a deceased anti-Christian manufacturer of dynamite” and as the promotion of Paganism. Then there were copies of Ulysses – never officially banned but very hard to get hold of – smuggled into Ireland in boxes marked “sanitary towels”.
One answer, a contributor fondly recalled, was to go to Belfast. “You could get all the nasty books and fun books you wanted,” he said. “You could also get contraceptives and spangled sweets, both of which were very desirable.”
We’re actually having our own struggle with the “evil literature” issue here in Arkansas right now. A woman named Laurie Taylor has a huge list of “offensive and inappropriate” books that she wants out of the school libraries. Including “The Bluest Eye” and “Beloved” by Toni Morrison. ‘Nuff said, right?
Thought that might be of interest to you Sheila. heh.
The Radio3 programme on The Committee on Evil Literature, TwentyMinutes, is still available online here
McGahern features quite a lot, unsurprisingly.. some of his books were included in the 12,000 titles banned in the 20th Century.. and the last book to be released from a ban – in Dec 2004 – Sex by Madonna, banned in 1992.
There are also a couple of great quotes in the programme from letters sent to Desmond Fitzgerald, Foreign Affairs Minister in the 20s, including this one from Ezra Pound – “What the hell does this mean? Can’t you keep condoms and classics in separate parts of your law books?”
Ireland in the 20s and 30s is what I think of every time I hear (even at my own church) that we need to “let God back in our government.”
::shudder::