The collection accumulated between 1926 and 1996 under the supervision of the Censorship of Publications Board, which barred literature deemed obscene or corrupting. Censors routinely evaluated submissions from customs agents, advocacy groups, and the Times Book Club, targeting everything from explicit themes to suggestive cover art. Although the delicate physical books will be preserved away from public touch, their accompanying files will be opened to the public for the first time.
Key points
Ireland is making the internal notes and minutes of its historic censorship board publicl…: Ireland is making the internal notes and minutes of its historic censorship board publicly accessible for the first time.
The transfer preserves a crucial record of shifting religious, moral, and political attit…: The transfer preserves a crucial record of shifting religious, moral, and political attitudes toward literature across seven decades.
The fragile physical volumes will remain protected from general handling while their docu…: The fragile physical volumes will remain protected from general handling while their documentation illuminates the mechanisms of state control.
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For almost a century, an Irish government building in the heart of Dublin has hosted a secret sanctum: the banned books room.
The department of justice, on St Stephen’s Green, did not grant public access, because the shelves contained 12,000 books deemed indecent or obscene.
It was a graveyard for titles condemned by the Censorship of Publications Board, a guardian of public morals which guillotined anything that smelled of sex or other corruptions.
Harold Robbins was interred. So too Ian Fleming, Edna O’Brien, Brendan Behan, Oscar Wilde, DH Lawrence, JD Salinger, John Updike, Iris Murdoch, F Scott Fitzgerald and many more.
Exhumation, however, is nigh. The entire collection is to be moved to the National Archives as part of the repeal of Ireland’s censorship laws. The censors’ notes, minutes and ledgers that detail why each book was banned will be made publicly available for the first time – a trove for researchers of social history and state control.
“The censors prohibited works that they saw as contravening or subverting public morality – anything that was seen as unwholesome or suggestive…
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