Risings and cancelling: Implicit censorship on a free Irish stage
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Accepted Version
Date
2024-01-23
Authors
Etienne, Anne
Fitzpatrick, Lisa
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Publisher
University of Exeter Press
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Abstract
In opposition to its British counterpart, Ireland could boast both a National Theatre and a stage free from official censorship in the early twentieth century. Even following Irish independence in 1922, theatre – unlike publications and cinema – remained untethered by any centralized censorship system. However, the absence of apparatus does not equate to the absence of censorship, and Joan FitzPatrick Dean’s taxonomy of stage censorship shows that the most pernicious interventions proved all the more effective because they operated outside of the law (2004: 27-32) and were motivated indirectly by a staunch Catholic ethos, if not directly by a prominent Church representative (2001). In this sense, O’Casey’s comment cited in the epigraph to this chapter is apposite – a Bishop need not be visible to be influential. In the twenty-first century, the influence of ‘a Bishop’ on artistic freedom has waned, but recent public events in Irish theatre conjure the image of levers that have functioned as mechanisms of exclusion. This chapter asks how the contemporary repertoire is shaped by exploring case studies through the lens of censorship, thereby attempting to identify contemporary agents of censorship in the Republic of Ireland (RoI) and Northern Ireland.
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Keywords
Theatre , Censorship , Ireland , Catholic , Northern Ireland
Citation
Etienne, A. and Fitzpatrick, L. (2024) 'Risings and cancelling: Implicit censorship on a free Irish stage', in Etienne, A. and Megson, C. (eds.) Theatre Censorship in Contemporary Europe - Silence and Protest. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
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© 2024, the Editors and the Contributors. This is an Accepted Manuscript (draft, post-peer-review, pre-copyediting version) of a chapter published by University of Exeter Press in Theatre Censorship in Contemporary Europe - Silence and Protest on 24 January 2024, available online: https://doi.org/10.47788/WHXD7915