Ray Burke on how the books of almost every Irish writer of note were banned in the last century
President Michael D. Higgins told a gathering of librarians that he was hosting at a Bloomsday Garden Party at Áras an Uachtaráin last June about a visit he made to the public library in Galway shortly after he moved there more than 60 years ago to work for the Electricity Supply Board before enrolling at the local university.
Having climbed the stairs to the library (housed at that time in Galway's 19th century county courthouse) he asked if he could borrow the book 'Why I Am Not a Christian' by the British philosopher and Nobel Literature Laureate Bertrand Russell.
He said that the librarian told him: 'I cannot give you that book'. He said that when he asked her why not, she replied: 'Because it would not be good for you'.
The impromptu denial suffered by the future President of Ireland was possible under the Censorship of Publications Acts that dated back to 1929 and that prohibited the importation into Ireland of more than 12,000 publications, mainly books or magazines, that were deemed by State-appointed censorship boards to be 'indecent or obscene' and likely 'to corrupt or deprave'.
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Almost every Irish writer of note had their books banned under the acts during the last century, irrespective of their international renown. Brendan Behan used to quip that in Ireland he was 'the leader of the banned'. Edna O'Brien had hardback first editions of her early novels confiscated by customs officers at Dublin Airport in 1966 when she arrived from London to attend a debate on censorship.
Galway libraries had been banning books even before the Censorship Acts came into force. 'Every effort has been made by the committee to ensure that no books of an objectionable nature should be allowed to circulate', the minutes of the first meeting of the Galway County Council Libraries Committee in May 1926 state.
At the same meeting, the committee – successor to the County Galway Carnegie Libraries – approved a report from the chief librarian that said: 'No little difficulty has been experienced in book selection, particularly in dealing with works of fiction as the general tendency in recent years of authors has lain more in the realm of sex, psychoanalysis, and other objectionable studies totally extraneous to any story'.
In February 1927, the committee resolved that copies of all books recommended for purchase be supplied 'to each member of the committee, the [Catholic] Archbishop of Tuam, and the Bishop of Galway'. Two months later it invited the two bishops to submit lists of books for purchase.
An early-1950s annual meeting of the committee noted: 'It was proposed by county councillor Tom King, seconded by Tadg O'Shea, and resolved that printed slips be inserted in every book issued at headquarters, branches and centres, asking readers to draw the attention of the county librarian 'to any objectionable book' and that lists of books for purchase be submitted to the book selection sub-committtee (which included a number of Catholic priests).
This may explain how Tom Kenny, of Kennys Bookshop in Galway, came into possession of a rare copy of James Joyce's 'Ulysses. 'It was a surprise some years ago when we bought an elderly local priest's library to discover a two-volume paperback set of Ulysses' by James Joyce which was published by the Odyssey Press. We got an even bigger shock when we opened the flyleaf and discovered the signature `
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M. Browne 1938′ – Cross Michael himself, the bishop', Tom has recalled.
An earlier, even-rarer copy of Ulysses had been censored by immolation in Galway shortly after its publication in 1922. Joyce sent a first edition to another Galway bookseller, Frank O'Gorman, in whose printing works Joyce's partner and future wife, Nora Barnacle, may have worked occasional, casual shifts.
It was inscribed 'To Frank, with best wishes, Nora and Jim', but Frank O'Gorman's mother promptly burned it. Her grandson Ronnie, a respected local historian and founder of the Galway Advertiser freesheet, last year donated his collection of rare and valuable books to the University of Galway shortly before his death after an illness.
It included an expensively acquired first edition of Ulysses and also a limited first edition of the book with illustrations by the French artist Henri Matisse, signed by both the artist and by Joyce.
A few months before Ronnie O'Gorman's death, the then minister for justice, Helen McEntee, announced, in November 2023, that she had obtained government approval to repeal the Censorship of Publications Acts. She acknowledged that censorship boards 'are of limited relevance in a modern society'.
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