James W. Upton and Honesty

James W. Upton started work at the turn of the century as a cub reporter on the Waterford Star newspaper. Forced to resign in 1913 as a result of his Sinn Fein activism he became the Editor of the Kilkenny Journal, a post he occupied until 1925. Upton held his editorial post in Kilkenny in conjunction with employment as a journalist on the Sinn Fein paper, until its suppression in 1914, and then as Editor of , Honesty, a sister paper of The Spark, which published its final edition as Irish War News, on 25 April 1916. Upton was present with Joseph Stanley as he printed and distributed Pearse’s bulletins to Dublin’s citizens during the rising, a contribution for which, Upton, has never received recognition. Leaving Kilkenny in 1925, Upton had a 6 year stint as Editor of the now largely forgotten, radical national weekly journal, Honesty. Honesty closed in the February of 1931 as a result of a controversy with Fianna Fail party over Upton’s editorial policy. Finally, having attempted unsuccessfully to establish his own journal, Publicity, between 1931 and 1932, Upton returned to freelancing for local papers until he retired from journalism in 1945. Upton was a courageous journalist at national and local level, a socialist and republican he risked life, limb, career and financial security in defence of a free and unfettered press, under both British and Free State administrations, Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil. His journalism, both local and national, was campaigning, focusing on the rights and living conditions of working people. Campaigning on issues like slum housing, poverty wages and prostitution. This paper will offer a biographical account of Upton’s life and journalism drawing on his journalistic output, publically available archival sources and the Upton family archives to establish that whilst largely forgotten today, Upton, as an important figure in Irish journalism on a local and national stage