‘Indecent and Suggestive Pictorial Matter’

Abstract

As an innovative photojournalism publication with a left-of-centre worldview, Picture Post was hugely popular in Ireland but also has the distinction of being one of the most frequently banned periodicals in twentieth-century Ireland. Senior church figures and morality campaigners viewed its photojournalism as indecent and obscene and engaged in a sustained decades-long battle to ban the publication. Utilising records held at the National Archives of Ireland, this article examines the campaign against Picture Post as a case study to offer a deeper comprehension of the Catholic Church inspired crusade against popular ‘foreign’ and ‘immoral’ publications. Understanding the motivations and rationale for targeting periodicals such as Picture Post is central to illuminating not just the censorship mentality that dominated Irish life in the period under consideration but is central also to appreciating the rational offered by morality campaigners in favour of the Irish censorship regime.