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[Post Famine Ireland- Social Structure
Ireland as it
Really Was.
Copyright
© 2006 by Desmond Keenan
NEWSPAPERS AND PUBLISHING
Book Summary. This chapter deals with Irish newspapers and periodicals, both national and provincial. The hyperlinks immediately below are to the most important headings.
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General
In the early 19th century local newspapers began to be published in every large town in Ireland. There was at least one in every county. They were small and mostly filled with local advertising, and any news they carried was copied from the Dublin newspapers. They had no local reporters apart from the editor himself. There was nearly always a Whig pro-Catholic paper and a Tory pro-ascendancy one in every large town and city. These later respectively became nationalist and unionist with a few Liberal newspapers surviving. Editorial content was usually virulent against the opposite side. If one wishes to study political or religious feeling at the time they are an excellent source of material but reporting of actual events is likely to be highly partisan and distorted. The same is true to a lesser extent of the Dublin newspapers whose proprietors and editors were likely to be graduates of Trinity College, and usually more measured in their language. Saunders’ Newsletter was however remarkable for its objectivity. The Freeman’s Journal has been cited as a reliable source of information but it would be inadvisable to depend on it as a sole source as it was selective and tendentious in its reporting, but not more than was customary at the time. After the demise of Saunders’ the Irish Times was the most balanced and objective.
By the middle of the 19th century newspapers became larger, cheaper and contained more local news, and are an indispensable source for historians. Irish newspapers were rather insular in outlook, paying little attention to the great issues of the world, and much to the disputes of the Poor Law Guardians, but that makes them all the more valuable as a source for the historian (Church of Ireland Gazette 15 Nov 1901).
There was complete freedom of the Press as in other parts of the United Kingdom, subject only to laws of libel. The laws against seditious libel and other libels continued (Keenan, Pre-Famine Ireland 409-13). Seditious libel was any writing liable to cause a breach of the peace, by inciting rioting, murders, intimidation, civil disorder, or armed uprising. The Lord Lieutenant also had powers to suppress newspapers which he considered likely to foment public disorder, and these powers he occasionally had to use. He suppressed in turn several papers of Arthur Griffith. Griffith, like Daniel O’Connell, wished to achieve an independent Ireland under the crown by purely peaceful means, but that did not mean that their followers would interpret their words in that sense (Weekly Irish Times 19 Aug 1922). Restrictions could be put on the Press by temporary legislation in cases of emergency. Such legislation was in force during the First World War in the whole of the United Kingdom. There were pressures on newspapers from another source and that was the Catholic Church. The clergy routinely denounced bad newspapers, which could mean anything the clergy disliked. A man named James MacCann of Navan produced a local newspaper called The Irish Peasant on the principles of respect for the clergy in matters of religion and independence of them with regard to anything else. He was faced by a campaign against it led by Cardinal Logue, and they succeeded in forcing the paper out of business (Weekly Irish Times 2 February 1907). A protest meeting in support of the newspaper was called by a prominent member of Sinn Fein, Mr Sheehy Skeffington. The clergy also led a campaign against English Sunday newspapers which were regarded as unsuitable for Irish Catholics.
CHAPTER TEN
NEWSPAPERS AND PUBLISHING
======================================================
General
In the early 19th century local newspapers began to be published in every large town in Ireland. There was at least one in every county. They were small and mostly filled with local advertising, and any news they carried was copied from the Dublin newspapers. They had no local reporters apart from the editor himself. There was nearly always a Whig pro-Catholic paper and a Tory pro-ascendancy one in every large town and city. These later respectively became nationalist and unionist with a few Liberal newspapers surviving. Editorial content was usually virulent against the opposite side. If one wishes to study political or religious feeling at the time they are an excellent source of material but reporting of actual events is likely to be highly partisan and distorted. The same is true to a lesser extent of the Dublin newspapers whose proprietors and editors were likely to be graduates of Trinity College, and usually more measured in their language. Saunders’ Newsletter was however remarkable for its objectivity. The Freeman’s Journal has been cited as a reliable source of information but it would be inadvisable to depend on it as a sole source as it was selective and tendentious in its reporting, but not more than was customary at the time. After the demise of Saunders’ the Irish Times was the most balanced and objective.
By the middle of the 19th century newspapers became larger, cheaper and contained more local news, and are an indispensable source for historians. Irish newspapers were rather insular in outlook, paying little attention to the great issues of the world, and much to the disputes of the Poor Law Guardians, but that makes them all the more valuable as a source for the historian (Church of Ireland Gazette 15 Nov 1901).
There was complete freedom of the Press as in other parts of the United Kingdom, subject only to laws of libel. The laws against seditious libel and other libels continued (Keenan, Pre-Famine Ireland 409-13). Seditious libel was any writing liable to cause a breach of the peace, by inciting rioting, murders, intimidation, civil disorder, or armed uprising. The Lord Lieutenant also had powers to suppress newspapers which he considered likely to foment public disorder, and these powers he occasionally had to use. He suppressed in turn several papers of Arthur Griffith. Griffith, like Daniel O’Connell, wished to achieve an independent Ireland under the crown by purely peaceful means, but that did not mean that their followers would interpret their words in that sense (Weekly Irish Times 19 Aug 1922). Restrictions could be put on the Press by temporary legislation in cases of emergency. Such legislation was in force during the First World War in the whole of the United Kingdom. There were pressures on newspapers from another source and that was the Catholic Church. The clergy routinely denounced bad newspapers, which could mean anything the clergy disliked. A man named James MacCann of Navan produced a local newspaper called The Irish Peasant on the principles of respect for the clergy in matters of religion and independence of them with regard to anything else. He was faced by a campaign against it led by Cardinal Logue, and they succeeded in forcing the paper out of business (Weekly Irish Times 2 February 1907). A protest meeting in support of the newspaper was called by a prominent member of Sinn Fein, Mr Sheehy Skeffington. The clergy also led a campaign against English Sunday newspapers which were regarded as unsuitable for Irish Catholics. [Top]
Dublin Newspapers
There were very great changes in the newspapers published over the period 1850 to 1920. Almost all the principal newspapers in 1850 disappeared and were replaced by new titles. Sometimes they just folded but more often they were absorbed by a more successful rival. The only surviving Liberal newspaper in Dublin, the Dublin Evening Post, did not long outlast the death of its long-term editor and proprietor Frederick William Conway in 1853 and it ended in 1875. Saunders’ Newsletter expired in 1879. Though the Freeman’s Journal lasted until 1924 it was of little importance after the Parnell Split in 1891 when the Irish Independent was launched. The weekly Nation was absorbed into the Irish Weekly Independent in 1900. The Evening Mail survived into the 20th century (Waterloo Directory). Important newcomers were The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, and The Belfast Telegraph (Newspaper Press Directory 1880). The larger newspapers tended to owned and edited by Protestants (Keenan, Pre-Famine Ireland 403-7).
The Irish Times, established in 1859 by Major Lawrence Knox and sold in 1873 to John Arnott the owner of the Northern Whig, was said to support a national policy towards Ireland and was much read by the commercial classes. It was the most inclusive of Irish newspapers, supporting the revival of Irish culture, music, language, and sports. (National, at that time, meant inclined to some form of Home Rule or limited control of Ireland by the Irish of all classes, but not the Catholic nationalism of John Redmond’s followers.) It spoke for a constituency of those Protestants who could accept a true National Party controlled by moderate Catholic and Protestant gentlemen. Under its editor John Edward Healey, a supporter of Horace Plunkett, it began to set itself against Home Rule. Healey was a graduate of Trinity College, was called to the bar, and became editor of the Dublin Daily Express. In 1907 he became editor of the Irish Times and retained the post for 27 years. His voice was one of sanity and conciliation in troubled times. He was immersed in European culture and considered Irish nationalism a reedy backwater. When the Home Rule Act was passed he fought against partition. Being opposed to republicanism his life was often in danger (DNB Healey). In the 20th century it lost circulation to the more populist Independent.
Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, the novelist, another graduate of Trinity College and barrister, successively purchased The Warder, The Evening Packet and The Evening Mail, and amalgamated them under the title Evening Mail, but continued with a weekly edition called The Warder, both being Protestant and Conservative in outlook (DNB le Fanu). Sir John Gray graduated in medicine in Glasgow University and in 1841 became part owner of the Freeman’s Journal. In 1843 he was imprisoned along with Daniel O’Connell, but the sentences on them were quashed. After 1850 when he became full owner of the Freeman’s Journal, he expanded it and reduced its price. He is chiefly famous for developing the Vartrey scheme for Dublin’s water supply, for which service he was knighted. He advocated the abolition of the Irish Protestant Church establishment, reform of the land laws, and free denominational education. In 1875 he was succeeded by his son, Edward Dwyer Gray, a staunch supporter of Charles Stuart Parnell and the Land League and then of the Home Rule movement. In 1891 Gray supported the Catholic bishops against Parnell. Its fortunes declined along with those of the Home Rule Party with which it had become identified. Both he and his father were elected to parliament. Edward Gray also became the proprietor of the Belfast Morning News which became the voice of Catholic nationalism in Belfast (DNB, John Gray; Edward Dwyer Gray).
The Irish Daily Independent was launched during the Parnell crisis in 1891 by Parnell’s supporters, to promote, it said, self-government, land law reform, local self-government, extension of the franchise, the promotion of labour and industrial relations, and the re-instatement of evicted tenants. Its real aim was to oppose the Freeman’s Journal. Unusually its owner was a Catholic, William Martin Murphy, the son of a small builder in Cork, who was educated by the Jesuits. He took over the family business in Bantry, Co. Cork, but as it expanded he moved its headquarters to Dublin. He became a director and later chairman of the Dublin Tramway Company which also prospered under his direction, and was famous for being the principal target of James Larkin’s strike in 1913. He had a hand in other businesses and bought the Irish Independent in 1904 which in 1906 had the largest sale of any newspaper in Ireland. He also owned the Dublin Evening Herald, the Weekly Independent, and the Sunday Independent, the only Irish Sunday newspaper in 1906 (Jeremy, Business Biography, W. M. Murphy). The Independent was aimed at the Catholic middle classes and farmers, and with them supported the more moderate elements in Sinn Fein who backed the ‘Treaty’ in 1921.
The weekly Nation, founded in 1842 by Young Ireland, was briefly influential in promoting the idea of ‘nationalism’. In 1858 Alexander Martin Sullivan became proprietor and editor. Unusually, Sullivan had not advanced further than the local National School. He opposed the Fenian conspiracy and was sentenced to death by the conspirators but the men detailed for the execution would not carry it out. He supported Isaac Butt’s Home Rule movement. He continued to support the movement, but disliked Parnell’s extremism. In 1876 he decided to devote himself to the bar and his brother Timothy Daniel Sullivan took over The Nation. The paper came to an end in 1900.
Outside Ulster moderate nationalism and moderate unionism were not far apart except for the issue of the Union. Nonetheless, the Times was distinctly a Protestant newspaper, and the Independent a Catholic one. The Dublin Daily Express, a Conservative newspaper established in 1851 had for a time the greatest circulation of any paper in Ireland. It was regarded as the organ of the gentry, Protestant clergy, and the professional and commercial classes who afterwards flocked to the Irish Times. [Top]
Provincial Newspapers
The circulations of the larger newspapers in the provincial towns and cities was often respectable, the Belfast Newsletter and the Cork Constitution, exceeding 100,000 copies annually. The oldest of them, the Belfast Newsletter (established in 1737, 105,000 copies), which claims to be the oldest newspaper in the world continuously in print, was Protestant and Conservative in character. A rival paper the Belfast Morning News was established in 1851 and claimed to be the first penny newspaper printed in Ireland. It was neutral and non-sectarian in tone, but later became the voice of Catholic nationalists in Ulster. The Northern Whig, (70,000) established in 1824, was a liberal newspaper which though published in Belfast circulated throughout Ireland. It supported reform, free trade, progress, and civil and religious equality. In Cork there were the Cork Constitution (105,000) and the Cork Examiner (70,000), the Constitution being Conservative and the Examiner Liberal. The Limerick Chronicle (93,000) was a moderate Conservative tri-weekly and the Limerick Reporter (30,000) was liberal. The Londonderry Sentinel (35,000) was conservative, the Londonderry Standard (33,000) Liberal, while the Derry Journal was independent. These smaller newspapers were bi-weekly and tri-weekly and survived because of local advertising and had local circulations of between 20,000 and 25,000 (British Parliamentary Papers, 335). The Cork Constitution, established in 1822, supported the constitution, the Established Church, agriculture, and military affairs, and was said to be popular with members of the armed forces
The Belfast Evening Telegraph (now The Belfast Telegraph) regarded itself as Conservative, moderate in political opinion, and promoted the Protestant [Church of Ireland] religion. It was started by William Baird in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war at a time when evening papers were again becoming fashionable. He had heard that a new evening paper was to be published from the offices of the Banner of Ulster, a Liberal Presbyterian paper which had folded the previous year, so he rushed out his own newspaper. He sold it at one halfpenny. It was a very progressive newspaper introducing new technologies as they were developed. The Baird family then purchased several other newspapers in Ulster. The Northern Whig survived as the voice of Liberalism.
The Belfast Morning News backed Parnell and the Land League. At the split in 1891 rivals from the faction which supported the bishops started the Irish News and took away it circulation. In 1892 the Irish News absorbed it. The Irish News became the mouthpiece for clerical nationalism and remained such until 1966 when a new editor was appointed (Encyclopaedia of Ireland ‘Irish News’). [Top]
Periodicals
Under this heading are included some which, like the Church of Ireland Gazette, could be classified as newspapers as they dealt with quite a broad range of topics of interest. The Gazette dealt not only with Church affairs in depth but with other topics like education, temperance, the census, Irish history, the Poor Law, old age pensions, emigration, the army, the position of women, etc. of interest to churchmen. It was the organ of the Established Church/Church of Ireland. By contrast the Irish Presbyterian and Irish Catholic and the evangelical Irish Protestant focussed more closely on the affairs of their own bodies. Very narrow too in their focus were various short-lived newspapers started by political groups. Though these could be essential reading for anyone studying the history of those sects or groups they provide little of general interest.
Many of the periodicals were of interest to particular groups, theologians, teachers, police, farmers and lawyers, though the medical profession does not seem to have produced any publication of broad general interest to Irish doctors. Most Irish periodicals suffered from competition from the bigger and richer English publications. For this reasons some excellent periodicals had short lives. The Irish periodicals cast a great deal of light on the affairs of particular interest groups. The Farmers’ Gazette, as one might expect, surveyed the whole farming scene. It was rivalled by The Homestead which was the organ of the IOAS, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, and focussed on the needs of smaller farmers, and how they could better themselves. The latter was founded by the Jesuit professor, Thomas Finlay S.J. It had an international influence under the editorship of George William Russell (AE) between 1905 and 1923 (DNB Russell). Similarly, The Irish Constabulary Gazette shows us what the ordinary policeman was doing and thinking, and it was very far from the self-justificatory propaganda of Sinn Fein politicians. The teachers’ journals, the Irish School Weekly, The Irish Teachers’ Journal, The National Teacher, and Our Schools show us the concerns of ordinary teachers not of clerical school managers, the National Board, or nationalist politicians.[Top]
Dublin Newspapers
There were very great changes in the newspapers published over the period 1850 to 1920. Almost all the principal newspapers in 1850 disappeared and were replaced by new titles. Sometimes they just folded but more often they were absorbed by a more successful rival. The only surviving Liberal newspaper in Dublin, the Dublin Evening Post, did not long outlast the death of its long-term editor and proprietor Frederick William Conway in 1853 and it ended in 1875. Saunders’ Newsletter expired in 1879. Though the Freeman’s Journal lasted until 1924 it was of little importance after the Parnell Split in 1891 when the Irish Independent was launched. The weekly Nation was absorbed into the Irish Weekly Independent in 1900. The Evening Mail survived into the 20th century (Waterloo Directory). Important newcomers were The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, and The Belfast Telegraph (Newspaper Press Directory 1880). The larger newspapers tended to owned and edited by Protestants (Keenan, Pre-Famine Ireland 403-7).
The Irish Times, established in 1859 by Major Lawrence Knox and sold in 1873 to John Arnott the owner of the Northern Whig, was said to support a national policy towards Ireland and was much read by the commercial classes. It was the most inclusive of Irish newspapers, supporting the revival of Irish culture, music, language, and sports. (National, at that time, meant inclined to some form of Home Rule or limited control of Ireland by the Irish of all classes, but not the Catholic nationalism of John Redmond’s followers.) It spoke for a constituency of those Protestants who could accept a true National Party controlled by moderate Catholic and Protestant gentlemen. Under its editor John Edward Healey, a supporter of Horace Plunkett, it began to set itself against Home Rule. Healey was a graduate of Trinity College, was called to the bar, and became editor of the Dublin Daily Express. In 1907 he became editor of the Irish Times and retained the post for 27 years. His voice was one of sanity and conciliation in troubled times. He was immersed in European culture and considered Irish nationalism a reedy backwater. When the Home Rule Act was passed he fought against partition. Being opposed to republicanism his life was often in danger (DNB Healey). In the 20th century it lost circulation to the more populist Independent.
Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, the novelist, another graduate of Trinity College and barrister, successively purchased The Warder, The Evening Packet and The Evening Mail, and amalgamated them under the title Evening Mail, but continued with a weekly edition called The Warder, both being Protestant and Conservative in outlook (DNB le Fanu). Sir John Gray graduated in medicine in Glasgow University and in 1841 became part owner of the Freeman’s Journal. In 1843 he was imprisoned along with Daniel O’Connell, but the sentences on them were quashed. After 1850 when he became full owner of the Freeman’s Journal, he expanded it and reduced its price. He is chiefly famous for developing the Vartrey scheme for Dublin’s water supply, for which service he was knighted. He advocated the abolition of the Irish Protestant Church establishment, reform of the land laws, and free denominational education. In 1875 he was succeeded by his son, Edward Dwyer Gray, a staunch supporter of Charles Stuart Parnell and the Land League and then of the Home Rule movement. In 1891 Gray supported the Catholic bishops against Parnell. Its fortunes declined along with those of the Home Rule Party with which it had become identified. Both he and his father were elected to parliament. Edward Gray also became the proprietor of the Belfast Morning News which became the voice of Catholic nationalism in Belfast (DNB, John Gray; Edward Dwyer Gray).
The Irish Daily Independent was launched during the Parnell crisis in 1891 by Parnell’s supporters, to promote, it said, self-government, land law reform, local self-government, extension of the franchise, the promotion of labour and industrial relations, and the re-instatement of evicted tenants. Its real aim was to oppose the Freeman’s Journal. Unusually its owner was a Catholic, William Martin Murphy, the son of a small builder in Cork, who was educated by the Jesuits. He took over the family business in Bantry, Co. Cork, but as it expanded he moved its headquarters to Dublin. He became a director and later chairman of the Dublin Tramway Company which also prospered under his direction, and was famous for being the principal target of James Larkin’s strike in 1913. He had a hand in other businesses and bought the Irish Independent in 1904 which in 1906 had the largest sale of any newspaper in Ireland. He also owned the Dublin Evening Herald, the Weekly Independent, and the Sunday Independent, the only Irish Sunday newspaper in 1906 (Jeremy, Business Biography, W. M. Murphy). The Independent was aimed at the Catholic middle classes and farmers, and with them supported the more moderate elements in Sinn Fein who backed the ‘Treaty’ in 1921.
The weekly Nation, founded in 1842 by Young Ireland, was briefly influential in promoting the idea of ‘nationalism’. In 1858 Alexander Martin Sullivan became proprietor and editor. Unusually, Sullivan had not advanced further than the local National School. He opposed the Fenian conspiracy and was sentenced to death by the conspirators but the men detailed for the execution would not carry it out. He supported Isaac Butt’s Home Rule movement. He continued to support the movement, but disliked Parnell’s extremism. In 1876 he decided to devote himself to the bar and his brother Timothy Daniel Sullivan took over The Nation. The paper came to an end in 1900.
Outside Ulster moderate nationalism and moderate unionism were not far apart except for the issue of the Union. Nonetheless, the Times was distinctly a Protestant newspaper, and the Independent a Catholic one. The Dublin Daily Express, a Conservative newspaper established in 1851 had for a time the greatest circulation of any paper in Ireland. It was regarded as the organ of the gentry, Protestant clergy, and the professional and commercial classes who afterwards flocked to the Irish Times.[Top]
Provincial Newspapers
The circulations of the larger newspapers in the provincial towns and cities was often respectable, the Belfast Newsletter and the Cork Constitution, exceeding 100,000 copies annually. The oldest of them, the Belfast Newsletter (established in 1737, 105,000 copies), which claims to be the oldest newspaper in the world continuously in print, was Protestant and Conservative in character. A rival paper the Belfast Morning News was established in 1851 and claimed to be the first penny newspaper printed in Ireland. It was neutral and non-sectarian in tone, but later became the voice of Catholic nationalists in Ulster. The Northern Whig, (70,000) established in 1824, was a liberal newspaper which though published in Belfast circulated throughout Ireland. It supported reform, free trade, progress, and civil and religious equality. In Cork there were the Cork Constitution (105,000) and the Cork Examiner (70,000), the Constitution being Conservative and the Examiner Liberal. The Limerick Chronicle (93,000) was a moderate Conservative tri-weekly and the Limerick Reporter (30,000) was liberal. The Londonderry Sentinel (35,000) was conservative, the Londonderry Standard (33,000) Liberal, while the Derry Journal was independent. These smaller newspapers were bi-weekly and tri-weekly and survived because of local advertising and had local circulations of between 20,000 and 25,000 (British Parliamentary Papers, 335). The Cork Constitution, established in 1822, supported the constitution, the Established Church, agriculture, and military affairs, and was said to be popular with members of the armed forces
The Belfast Evening Telegraph (now The Belfast Telegraph) regarded itself as Conservative, moderate in political opinion, and promoted the Protestant [Church of Ireland] religion. It was started by William Baird in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war at a time when evening papers were again becoming fashionable. He had heard that a new evening paper was to be published from the offices of the Banner of Ulster, a Liberal Presbyterian paper which had folded the previous year, so he rushed out his own newspaper. He sold it at one halfpenny. It was a very progressive newspaper introducing new technologies as they were developed. The Baird family then purchased several other newspapers in Ulster. The Northern Whig survived as the voice of Liberalism.
The Belfast Morning News backed Parnell and the Land League. At the split in 1891 rivals from the faction which supported the bishops started the Irish News and took away it circulation. In 1892 the Irish News absorbed it. The Irish News became the mouthpiece for clerical nationalism and remained such until 1966 when a new editor was appointed (Encyclopaedia of Ireland ‘Irish News’). [Top]
Periodicals
Under this heading are included some which, like the Church of Ireland Gazette, could be classified as newspapers as they dealt with quite a broad range of topics of interest. The Gazette dealt not only with Church affairs in depth but with other topics like education, temperance, the census, Irish history, the Poor Law, old age pensions, emigration, the army, the position of women, etc. of interest to churchmen. It was the organ of the Established Church/Church of Ireland. By contrast the Irish Presbyterian and Irish Catholic and the evangelical Irish Protestant focussed more closely on the affairs of their own bodies. Very narrow too in their focus were various short-lived newspapers started by political groups. Though these could be essential reading for anyone studying the history of those sects or groups they provide little of general interest.
Many of the periodicals were of interest to particular groups, theologians, teachers, police, farmers and lawyers, though the medical profession does not seem to have produced any publication of broad general interest to Irish doctors. Most Irish periodicals suffered from competition from the bigger and richer English publications. For this reasons some excellent periodicals had short lives. The Irish periodicals cast a great deal of light on the affairs of particular interest groups. The Farmers’ Gazette, as one might expect, surveyed the whole farming scene. It was rivalled by The Homestead which was the organ of the IOAS, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, and focussed on the needs of smaller farmers, and how they could better themselves. The latter was founded by the Jesuit professor, Thomas Finlay S.J. It had an international influence under the editorship of George William Russell (AE) between 1905 and 1923 (DNB Russell). Similarly, The Irish Constabulary Gazette shows us what the ordinary policeman was doing and thinking, and it was very far from the self-justificatory propaganda of Sinn Fein politicians. The teachers’ journals, the Irish School Weekly, The Irish Teachers’ Journal, The National Teacher, and Our Schools show us the concerns of ordinary teachers not of clerical school managers, the National Board, or nationalist politicians.