IRELAND
Irish Times
Mark O’Brien
In one of the few self-critical reflections on journalism in mid-twentieth century Ireland, journalist Michael O’Toole observed that up to the 1960s journalists were generally “a docile lot, anxious to please the proprietor, the advertiser, the prelate, the statesman”. The era was, he argued, characterised by “an unhealthy willingness to accept the prepared statement, the prepared speech, and the handout without demanding the opportunity of asking any searching questions by way of follow-up”.
There were many reasons for this. The Censorship of Publications Act had hobbled journalism by curtailing reportage of certain types of court cases; poor pay and employment conditions along with low educational levels among journalists hampered the development of journalism as a viable career; and strict censorship during the second World War, as one journalist put it, “had an effect on both the press and the public for some years after”. As a result, many of the more unpleasant aspects of life in newly independent Ireland were, for many decades, kept out of the public arena.
Writing in 1941 Seán O’Faolain noted that “it is a tradition in Dublin newspapers not to exploit personal scandals, however juicy the news. You can call that anything you like – Hush-Hush, Cowardice, Prudery, Decency . . . Whether the thing is good or bad it is an instructive approach to standards of behaviour in Journalism”.
Unsurprisingly, given their institutional power, court cases involving Catholic priests were an absolute no-go area for the press. In 1941 a High Court case in which two schoolboys sued one of their teachers, Rev John Kearney, was completely ignored by the Irish press but received sustained coverage in the British press. As reported in the Daily Mirror, the boys alleged that “Fr Kearney had forced them to strip and gave them each twenty lashes with a loaded sporting whip”. The description of the assault left nothing to the imagination: the student was “was told to take off his coat and trousers, and even his shirt was pulled up by Fr Kearney. He was told to get across a chair, and received nearly twenty fierce lashes with the whip. He called for mercy, but none was shown. Then he had to witness the same horrible exhibition of cruelty. Later he was expelled.”
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