Emerald Extracts


Home Page > Blogs > Roots blogs > Emerald Extracts > No books left in Ireland to ban
Emerald Extracts Photographer1
Emerald Extracts by IrishCentral Columnists

No books left in Ireland to ban

Posted on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 01:57 AM
print this article Print
email this articleE-mail
comment on article 4 Comments
 

RSS


Recent Posts

Archives

submit to reddit

After 80 years of censorship, one of Ireland’s oldest banned books, on the grounds of obscenity will have its prohibition lifted this year.

Under the terms of the 1967 Censorship of Publications Act, books classified as “indecent or obscene” have their prohibitions lifted after 12 years.

Odran Flynn, a member of the board of censorship in Ireland since 2001 has noted there has been a dramatic decline in prohibitions in recent times.

“In the early 2000s there would have been meetings every two months, because at that stage there was a campaign by a group of people who continuously wrote in complaining about magazines. But in the last four to five years we probably haven’t met more than three times. So basically there’s been no activity at all,” he told the Irish Times.

Flynn said it would surprise him greatly “if there were any books banned in the future”.


print this article Print
email this articleE-mail

4 Comments

See all comments

Annetherese | Dec 28, 2010, 10:41 AM EST
I'm a senior at State University of New York--Empire State College, and the more I learn and read, the more I believe that books should not be censored except possibly by the parents or teachers at school when a child may be too young. Great news!

Report abuse

Silling | Dec 26, 2010, 10:40 AM EST
What about the Ban Gardai?

Report abuse

eiriamach | Dec 24, 2010, 12:55 PM EST
I can't think of any real irish or American who has ever approved of censorship except Mae West, who once remarked, "I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it." And she told the truth: censorship makes the forbidden seem more attractive, more credible, and more desirable simply because some Censor thinks it is dangerous to us. Censorship's own power to forbid causes it to fail. As many parents know, the way to get a child to read a book is to let the child see you putting the book away carefully in a low, unlocked drawer while saying to the child, "Now this book is not for your eyes. I don't want you to look at this book until you're MUCH older." Have you ever been censored? I have, for my dangerous, insidious left-leaning politics. We the censored might take comfort in the words of Eugene O'Neill: "Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and will always be the last resort of the boob and the bigot."

Report abuse

Towngate | Dec 23, 2010, 02:22 PM EST
I think Brendan Behan said " The only way to get anything done in Ireland is to BAN it. If the Governmant banned the Irish language - you wouldn't hear a word of English in a week!"

Report abuse

 




Log into IrishCentral with your Facebook account

or sign-in directly

E-Mail:
Password:
 Remember me Forgot my password
Not a member? Register Now!
print this article Print
email this articleE-mail