Catholicism and Literary Censorship in the Irish Free State.

This paper charts the influence of the Irish Catholic church on the introduction of the 1929 Censorship of Publications Act and the church's subsequent mobilization to expand censorship to encompass what it viewed as blasphemy. Central to this analysis is an understanding of church-state relationships in an era when the government of the fledgling Irish Free State sought to develop its democratic institutions as the church sought to extend its authority and control over ia populace that it viewed as open to degeneration if not managed in an authoritarian manner, Events that took place n a hostile environment in which the FRee State Government depended on the political capital of the Catholic church to bolster its legitimacy and very survival in a post-colonial era in which it faced enemies within and without its borders.