{"id":283443,"date":"2026-02-06T06:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T06:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/283443\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T06:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T06:25:09","slug":"how-ireland-tried-to-stem-a-tide-of-filth-with-a-committee-on-evil-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/283443\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ireland tried to stem a \u2018tide of filth\u2019 with a Committee on Evil Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nA century ago, Kevin O\u2019Higgins set the ball rolling for decades of draconian censorship that would lead to bans on books by the likes of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Edna O\u2019Brien\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\u2018Material coming through the post was censored\u2019: Podcaster Dr Aoife Bhreatnach with some banned books at her home in Cork. Photo: Daragh Mc Sweeney\/Provision\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/a3b88793-d433-4536-8f37-14bbf67f82c1.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">\u2018Material coming through the post was censored\u2019: Podcaster Dr Aoife Bhreatnach with some banned books at her home in Cork. Photo: Daragh Mc Sweeney\/Provision<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It was widely believed that measures were needed to stem the \u201ctide of filth\u201d coming into the new Irish Free State, so on February 12, 1926, 100 years ago next week, justice minister Kevin O\u2019Higgins announced the appointment of a Committee on Evil Literature.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A day earlier there were, according to the Freeman\u2019s Journal, \u201criotous scenes in the Abbey Theatre\u201d for Sean O\u2019Casey\u2019s new play, The Plough and the Stars \u2013 a repeat of 1907 when riots targeted The Playboy of the Western World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A century ago, Kevin O\u2019Higgins set the ball rolling for decades of draconian censorship that would lead to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,27195,43288,43,279],"class_list":{"0":"post-283443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-james-joyce","11":"tag-liam-collins","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-review-magazine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}