Censorship and the Irish Writer: Politics, Polemics, and the International Dialectic

Censorship affected the careers of many Irish writers and transformed the trajectory of modern Irish literature.Although some authors were reluctant to defend themselves and their art, others strenuously fought against the curtailment of freedom of expression by lobbying politicians, writing polemics, and organising themselves into professional bodies and activist groups.Supported by archival research and informed by philosophical concerns, Censorship and the Irish Writer details almost a century of this history from an innovative perspective.Discussing writers such as AE, Lady Gregory, James Joyce, John McGahern, Edna O’Brien, Sean O’Casey, Sean O’Faolain, Bernard Shaw, and W.B.Yeats and writers’ organisations like the Irish Academy of Letters and Irish PEN, Brad Kent offers vital insight into the intersections of politics, art, and resistance. While this book recounts spectacular controversies, it places such events in a long line of agitations for greater freedom of expression and i