Sir, – Further to Frank McNally's An Irishman's Diary on Joyce and the Dublin Vigilance Committee (April 1st): far from petering out, the group restyled itself the Irish Vigilance Association (IVA) in 1915 and achieved an immediate success in pressurising Dublin Corporation to establish a localised censorship of films in 1916. The IVA launched a new "Good Literature Crusade" in July 1919 and in November of that year organised a large demonstration in Dublin against "indecent theatrical performances", which was supported by Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and the ITGWU, among others. As the Dáil gathered following the Treaty split to select ministers in the new Provisional Government in February 1922, an IVA delegation waited outside, anxious to discuss the immediate establishment of state film and publications censorship. The group joined other Catholic Action organisations like the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland in driving the censorship agenda in the Free State. The result was those two great monuments to Irish philistinism: the Censorship of Films Act, 1923, and the Censorship of Publications Act, 1929. – Yours, etc,
DR DONAL Ó DRISCEOIL,
School of History,
University College Cork.