The Bishop and the Nightie: censure in television
The most memorable scandals in Irish life feature a fulminating bishop and this is no exception. This brief controversy is infamous but why do we find it so compelling? Dr Morgan Wait joins me to talk about television and titillation in 1960s Ireland.
Mastodon
Theatre riots might capture the imagination but audiences, critics and authority figures shape theatre in other less dramatic ways. Guest Dr Barry Houlihan talks about his new book Theatre and archival memory: Irish drama and marginalised histories 1951-77 (2022)
A tour of the maze of committees that controlled who read what in Irish public libraries. Public libraries were one of the most important sources of reading material for ordinary people.
Both these artists were renowned for their religious subject matter but they still offended important people.
Everyone wanted a piece of Roger Casement, but which piece? Carefully extracting his skeleton from heavy London mud in 1965 didn’t end the controversy over his life and lusts.
The scandal over Roer Casement’s diaries is huge. It’s past time I read the smut and examined the censure of the man and his writings.
Liam O’Flaherty was the angriest Irish author of his generation, raging against ‘soutaned witch-doctors’ (Catholic priests). With guest, Teresa Dunne
This vibrant intellectual magazine was never censored, even though it’s editor was an anti-censorship campaigner. But getting a copy wasn’t that easy. With guest Dr Phyllis Boumans
The real truth about post-independence Ireland is that everyone was reading the British sleazy tabloid, the News of the World. Some people were determined to stop that.
A novel famous for the furious reaction it provoked in the people of Delvin, Co Westmeath. But how do boycotts work and why are they so terrifying?
