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IRELAND HAS NEVER had a great track record when it comes to censorship.
From Monty Python’s Life of Brian to Baise-moi, from A Clockwork Orange to Natural Born Killers, many of Ireland’s film and book censors – especially in the first four decades after independence – used their role to enforce strict and at times draconian morals on the public.
The role has changed a lot in the past decade: the film censor has been rebranded as the film classification office and focuses more on what rating to give films than whether they should be banned, while the book and magazine censorship board now receives a tiny number of complaints from the public and rarely – if ever – bans anything.
But the legacy of the harsh censorship regime remains in the list of books and magazines that are still banned in Ireland. There are 274 books and magazines banned in Ireland today – but some have been fighting back.
What books are banned in Ireland now?
(Photo:Graham Hughes/Photocall Ireland)
Books can be banned for two different reasons in Ireland:
The Censorship of Publications Board, made up of five people appointed by the Minister for Justice, is in charge of deciding whether a book can be banned or not, but it can’t act on its own accord – it has to receive a complaint before it can assess whether a book should be added to the list of prohibited publications.
Right now, there’s a grand total of zero books banned for being indecent or obscene. Books about abortion, on the other hand, are a different matter.
Eight books are currently banned in Ireland for providing information on how to procure abortion. Three of the books are explicitly about abortion: Abortion Internationally (banned since 1983), Abortion: Our Struggle for Control (also banned in 1983) and Abortion: Right or Wrong (banned seventy years ago in 1942).
Unexpectedly, four of the other five are sex guides. How to Drive Your Man Wild in Bed has been banned in Ireland since 1985, while The Complete Guide to Sex has been banned since 1990 because they appear to contain information about the procurement of abortion. Make it Happy: What Sex is All About, The Book of Love, and the slightly more medical The Love Diseases have all been banned since the early 1980s.
The books banned under the abortion rule have fallen foul of a strange loophole. All eight of the books were banned before the 1992 referendum which made it legal for information about abortion in other countries to be made available in Ireland (through books, pamphlets, etc), so technically they should be permissible. However while most books are unbanned 12 years after they were first banned, the legislation governing censoring books brought in a different rule for abortion books which means the 12 year rule doesn’t apply. Because of this, all eight of the books will remain banned indefinitely until someone appeals the banning.
Despite much talk to the contrary, Ulysses by James Joyce was never actually banned by the Censorship of Publications Board. Instead, the government used a customs loophole which prevented it from being allowed into Ireland.
What magazines and periodicals are banned in Ireland?
(Photo: Dave Thompson/PA Wire)
Far more magazines than books are banned in Ireland, but for much more varied reasons. 266 magazines are currently banned in Ireland; a strange mixture of hardcore pornography, crime magazines from the 1950s and 60s, and ones which inexplicably fell foul of the censor at the time (Broadway and Hollywood Movies, Eye: People and Pictures, and Health and Efficiency magazines are all banned).
Some of the bannings are unexpected: the British edition of the News of the World was technically banned up until it was closed down by Rupert Murdoch last summer. Ireland’s Daily Sport, including the Daily Sport, was banned in 1995, as was its weekend version. Hustler magazine has been banned since 1981 and Playgirl has been banned since 1974.
A large number of the banned magazines are about crime, with many of the titles sounding somewhat quaint now. Amazing Detective Cases was banned in 1958, as was Detective Weekly, while Famous Crime Stories was banned in 1959. All were banned for having “an unduly large proportion of space for the publication of matter related to crime”.
Meanwhile Big Ones International (banned 1997), Man’s Conquest (1960), Romp (1981) and Scamp Magazine (1963) remain sadly unavailable on Irish shelves. Some magazines have managed to get around the ban by bringing out different versions: so while magazines like Hustler are banned, spin-off magazines with similar titles can get around the ban.
Others have started to fight back. Late last year, a distributor of porn magazines successfully appealed against the banning of five magazines, which led to them being taken off the list of prohibited publications.One of the magazines, Razzle, had been prohibited in Ireland since 1935 before the ban was overturned.
Unlike with books, where bans last for 12 years before they expire, magazines remain banned indefinitely.
More recent bannings and the introduction of Playboy
(Photo: Photocall Ireland)
Banning publications isn’t all in the distant post: In Dublin magazine was banned by the Censorship of Publications Board in 1999 after a complaint about the explicit nature of the advertisements for massage parlours which populated the back pages of the listings magazine. The Board banned the sale and distribution of the magazine for six months for being “unusually or frequently indecent or obscene”, in a move that caused huge outcry over censorship and lack of accountability.
The High Court lifted the ban when it came to court and said that the publishers of the magazine should have been given an opportunity to state their case before the Board before the ban was implemented.
At the other end of things, Playboy magazine was unbanned in Ireland in January 1996 (and quickly become the highest-selling men’s title in the country).
“Morals have changed,” said a spokesperson for the Censorship of Publications Board. “What was considered obscene in the 1940s is very different to what is considered obscene today”.
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Nothing to do with that peaceful religion of course.
Probably America’s fault scipio because of the Malian governments improved relationship with western nations, well from the tin foil hat brigade anyway?.
The fact is westerners in any predominately Islamic nation can often be taking their lives in their own hands, you don’t know when or where these Islamofacist nut jobs are going to strike next, but strike they will.
Look guys, we know you hate the religion of islam, but you could at least wait for further info before you spout your hatred.
And remember if someone blatantly hated the jewish religion like you two hate islam, we know what they would be called.
….There’s murder on the dance floor…you better not kill the groove….
Once a bigot always a bigot eh Scipio? Let’s condemn Austrian Protestants for the actions of Northern Loalist murder gangs. Let’s judge ALL Christians by the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church, let’s judge ALL Jews by the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians. Let’s blame ALL secularists for the actions of Hitler & Stalin. Is that how we should work this? So called Islamic Fundamentalists have killed more Shi’ia Muslims than any other religious group but hey, according to Scipio we should blame all Shi’as too! It’s about as logical as blaming German Jews for Nazism because they are German!
Scipio doesn’t want shades or a nuanced view, everything is black and white. Muslims bad, everyone else good.
The useful idiots are out this evening I see defending the Jihadis. I’m sure they’ll return the favour.
and they call the likes of scipio a bigot?, when he like me thinks the spread of this Islamic disease will have my grand children cursing me!.
Wiiliam some people won’t realise until it’s too late and they’re jizya paying dhimmis.
Ten Major I judge the actions of jihadists by the prophet they wish to emulate, not by ridiculous comparisons to completely different religions, and this and the actions of the likes of Isis is completely in tune with his teachings.
It’s clear from both of your comments that you’re a self-loathing western hating apologist for Islamic terrorism. It must be hard to look in the mirror.
I neither condone nor support the likes of ISIS, how you come to that conclusion is beyond me. They are an anathema to me. My whole point is not to blame different religions or it’s followers for the sins of others who may even claim to speak for them. You may enjoy sitting god like and judging entire swathes of humanity based on the actions of some insane group of fanatics but I don’t.
I would never make a Jew unwelcome because of the actions of the IDF, no more than I would make a Muslim feel unwelcome for the actions of some crazy group like ISIS. I am also educated enough to know that Judaism has many aspects, so too does Islam. That said I am suspicious of all religious groupings, especially Monotheistic ones.
Something tell me you would never be called a self loather among your colleagues.
All I do know for certain is that the only troops on the ground fighting ISIS are The Kurds, Hezbollah, Medhi Army in Iraq and the army of the Syrian state.Where is the religion of peace (Christianity) in all this? Ten to fifteen thousand meters above it all at best and then almost exclusively over Iraq.
The defenders of civilisation are an unlikely, odd and disparate group to say the least.
You should have mentioned in your piece that the Irish Defence Forces are deployed to Mali in small numbers.
They are there as part of an EU training mission working with the British Army to train the local army.
One Irish officer is in Bamako attached to the mission HQ, the others are 100k away at a training camp.
Your reporter should check that they are safe, if they are on a heightened security alert, and the effect this attack will have on the mission, if any.
I was actually drinking in that place two weeks ago.
that would be asking the journal staff to do some work and not just redistribute articles from other news agencies.
I wonder who’s responsible….
Isn’t it bad enough that our army is collaborating with an organisation that was involved in the murder of hundreds of unarmed Irish men, women and children either directly or by their trained proxies but you want to highlight that shame?
Dear oh dear, I am all for peace and reconciliation and close ties with our nearest neighbour but not with their military which has colluded in murder and cover up so much, all with in living memory. Some of these thugs are still serving in high rank. The British army’s record in ‘training’ armies and militias (murder gangs) is horrific compared to our army’s proud and excellent record in peace keeping.
Cowardly murderers who are muslim
@Buckwheat MacMillan. Verey well put. I couln’t agree with you more.
Mali is far but Clongriffin is near. Focus here because this is where the “Fighters in Allah’s Cause” will be born,- bank-rolled by govt. of Qatar who is chief enabler of Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas/ISIS/ETC.
And below is a quote from Mohammed’s war manual.
Volume 4, Book 52, Number 196 :
Narrated by Abu Huraira
Allah ‘s Apostle said, ” I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah,’ and whoever says, ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah,’ his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his accounts will be with Allah, (either to punish him or to forgive him.)”
have your say