Mollocking: Gibbon 'Cold Comfort Farm' (1932)
How could this delicious literary parody be described as indecent? Only the Irish censors saw something nasty in a comic take on DH Lawrence and Jane Austen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...
15 Apr 202131min
Fecundshite: Joyce 'Ulysses' (1922)
James Joyce went way beyond smut when he wrote Ulysses, an epic modernist masterpiece. The censorship history of Ulysses is as mind boggling as the author’s bloody-minded determination to offend. In a...
18 Mar 202150min
Unsuitable for Irish: bold books as Gaeilge
The scrutiny of the censor was confined to the English language. But work in Irish, the other language of the state, were also censored by editors, bureaucrats and catholic reactionaries. No language ...
11 Mar 202140min
The McGahern Affair Part 2, the scandal
Outrage over banned books was rare but this scandal had it all: a persecuted artist, overbearing clerics and legal reform. The Dark (1965) was a powerful book that helped change the censorship system....
4 Mar 202136min
The McGahern Affair Part 1, the Book
When The Dark was banned in 1965, John McGahern became the focus of a censorship controversy. But what about this coming-of-age novel irked the censors? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...
25 Feb 202142min
Sexual Inversion: Hall 'The Well of Loneliness' (1928)
Hall's queer text was at the centre of an English moral panic and censorship show trial. Why did the Irish censor prohibit a book that was effectively banned in Ireland anyway? Hosted on Acast. See ac...
18 Feb 202135min
Too critical: O'Brien 'The Land of Spices' (1941)
A censor called this book ‘unwholesome’ in parliament because it mentioned ‘sodomy’. But maybe O’Brien’s pointed criticism of nationalism was the real reason it was banned. Hosted on Acast. See acast....
11 Feb 202141min
Original Sin: Spark 'The Bachelors' (1960)
An entertaining and elegant look at singledom in London that challenged censor's ideas on sex and conception. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
4 Feb 202128min
