Irish Censorship in Context

Peter Martin

Issue 379, vol.95, Autumn 2006

As a result of an approach by both Catholic and Protestant dignitaries to the Minister (Kevin 0’Higgins) in 1923, the Censorship Of Films Bill was introduced, and a single censor appointed for the country. At the time, the new medium was seen as providing entertainment for children and for the lower classes. The censor himself raised fears concerning the possible copy-cat behaviour of slum children after watching gangster films. He also proceeded to disallow any depiction of nudity, infidelity or divorce – and came down hard on anything he considered vulgar or blasphemous. (In contrast to other countries, no “adults only” classification existed here until 1965).

The 1970 Censorship of Films Act allowed for an appeal of the censor’s verdict after seven years. Today – in the age of the Internet – the official censor contents himself with issuing classifications designed to help viewers make up their own minds.

Later in the 1920s came the Censorship of Publications Act. Although the law proscribed only material “in its general tendency indecent or obscene”, this was ignored, and one controversial passage could damn a whole book. There was no presumption in favour of literary creativity, no onus on the censor to specifically demonstrate why the material was pernicious.

A publication could be brought to the censor’s attention by the public, by the Garda, by the Customs. This gave carte blanche to pro-censorship activists, many of them belonging to Catholic organizations. In these circles, Ireland was regarded as an oasis of virtue amid a sea of modern-day depravity. The origin of the latter was held to be the British-press organs infiltrating Ireland – so well-resourced that Irish publications required protection in face of the threat. The end result was that real pornography was not targeted – only mainstream books and magazines. (Of publications banned, 70% had been reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement. 11% concerned birth control). Such publications, then, were never to reach bookstalls or local libraries.

The most enlightening parallel is the Australian censorship system, which also proscribed thousand of books (though even Britain – and the U.S. also – had censorship regimes). Here too there seems to have been an attitude of : we are not part of the common (wayward) herd; we have higher standards of propriety. Censorship had become an issue of national self-determination : in the eyes of the activists, a censorship-regime which banned only what was obviously unacceptable, would have been pointless.

Anti-censorship voices eventually made themselves heard; and the 1967 Censorship Of Publications Act allowed for a review of a decision of the censor after twelve years.

The more liberal censorship Acts were little debated. There was no appeal to rights (of expression) to be found in our Constitution and waiting to be activated (as there would have been, in America, to The Bill Of Rights or to Court precedents extending the right of free speech)…Had we merely blundered into freedom ?

Peter Martin lectures in the School of History and Archives, University College, Dublin