Latest / The History of Ireland: Rebellion, Empire, and Independence — Fexingo History / The Tailor and Ansty: Censorship in De Valera's Ireland
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about the big political events — the Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War. But after independence, the new Irish state had this intense focus on shaping a national identity, often through censorship. And there's one story that really captures that — the case of 'The Tailor and Ansty'. Luna: The tailor and what now? Lucas: Ansty. 'The Tailor and Ansty' was a book published in 1942 by a Welsh-born writer named Eric Cross. It was a collection of folktales and humorous anecdotes told by a real tailor in West Cork named Timothy Buckley, and his wife Anastasia, who everyone called Ansty. The book was warm, earthy, full of ribald humour and old Irish folklore. Luna: Sounds charming. What was the problem? Lucas: The problem was that in de Valera's Ireland, the Catholic Church had enormous influence over what people could read. The Censorship of Publications Act had passed in 1929, and it was aggressively enforced. The Tailor and Ansty was banned by the Censorship Board for being 'obscene' — and that sparked a huge public controversy. Luna: Obscene? For telling folk tales? Lucas: Well, some of the tales were pretty bawdy — they talked about sex and bodily functions in a very direct, peasant way. That was too much for the moral guardians. The book was denounced from the pulpit, and there were calls for it to be burned. The local priest in the tailor's village, a Father O'Mahony, put enormous pressure on Timothy and Anastasia to repudiate the book. Luna: So what happened to them? Lucas: It was heartbreaking. The old couple were ostracized. Ansty was forced to kneel in the church and apologize. Timothy Buckley died not long after, in 1945, a broken man. Eric Cross, the author, was effectively driven out of Ireland. But the controversy didn't end there — it became a symbol of the repressive nature of the Irish state. Luna: It sounds like a cultural war over what it meant to be Irish. Lucas: Exactly. On one side you had the de Valera vision of Ireland — rural, pious, Gaelic-speaking, sexually pure. On the other, a more open, European, literary Ireland. The Tailor and Ansty became a flashpoint. People like Sean O'Faolain, the editor of 'The Bell' magazine, rallied to its defense. O'Faolain wrote a famous essay called 'The Tailor and Ansty: A Public Scandal'. Luna: What was 'The Bell'? Lucas: It was a literary magazine founded in 1940 by Sean O'Faolain. It published short stories, poetry, and essays that often challenged the censorship regime. The Bell became a platform for writers like Frank O'Connor, Flann O'Brien, and Patrick Kavanagh. O'Faolain used it to argue that censorship was stifling Irish creativity and turning the country into a cultural backwater. Luna: So The Bell fought back against the censors? Lucas: It did. And in 1945, O'Faolain himself had a run-in with the censors over a story called 'The End of the World' by Michael McLaverty, which was banned. The Bell published an open letter to the Censorship Board, challenging their decisions. But the real turning point came in the 1960s, when the censorship laws were gradually relaxed. The man who pushed for reform was Brian Lenihan, the Minister for Justice. Luna: So the Tailor and Ansty case helped change things? Lucas: It was one of the early cracks in the wall. The book became a cause célèbre for liberals. By the 1960s, the cultural mood had shifted — partly because of television, partly because of a new generation of Irish people who had traveled abroad. The Censorship Board started to approve books that would have been banned in the 1940s, like works by Edna O'Brien and John McGahern. Luna: But the book itself — is it still banned? Lucas: No, it was unbanned in the 1970s. And it's now considered a classic of Irish folklore. But the story of the Tailor and Ansty is a reminder of how recent that censorship was, and how fiercely the battle for intellectual freedom was fought in Ireland. It's a story about power, about who gets to decide what's acceptable, and about the human cost of that control. Luna: And about the courage of ordinary people like Timothy and Anastasia? Lucas: Absolutely. They were just an old couple in a remote cottage, and they got caught up in a national drama. Their story is a window into a time when Ireland was still finding its way, still arguing about what kind of country it wanted to be. And in a way, that argument never really ends. Luna: I think I need to read that book now. Lucas: You should. It's funny, vibrant, and full of life. And knowing the story behind it makes those pages feel even more precious.