The Derry Journal bears the unlikely distinction of being the only local newspaper ever to have been banned on both sides of the Border.
Its prohibition was announced in dramatic fashion when, on the morning of January 4th, 1932, gardaí burst into newsagents in Donegal and confiscated copies from the shelves, and seized unopened bundles of papers from railway platforms.
The Journal's next edition carried an indignant response: "Papers held up in the Free State. A mystery that remains unexplained."
Although the ban was lifted almost immediately – no doubt hastened by condemnations carried everywhere from the Irish Press to the Belfast News Letter – the Journal's editor was unable to find out who – or what – was behind it. An almost farcical series of denials ensued. The gardaí in Donegal maintained their orders had come from Dublin, but Dublin denied involvement – even though the censorship and prohibition of newspapers was the responsibility of a military tribunal, answerable to the Department of Justice.
Tense
Although no official reason was ever given, the most likely explanation is that the
Journal
, which supported Fianna Fáil, had fallen foul of the Cumann na nGaedheal government in a tense pre-election period.
While, editorially, the Journal faced firmly south, it was written and published in Northern Ireland and drew its influence from northern nationalism and the republicanism of Donegal, rather than from the strand of nationalism espoused by Cumann na nGaedheal.
This regional particularism had earned the Journal a short-lived ban in the South, but it was to be the second World War – or "the Emergency", as the Journal called it – that would bring it into conflict with the authorities in the North.
This time the paper found itself in the fortuitous position of being able to announce its own prohibition.
"The Derry Journal, the oldest of Irish provincial newspapers, with a history of uninterrupted circulation since 1772, appears only in its Twenty-Six County Edition today," the paper's Donegal headline read.
By order of the Stormont minister of home affairs, Sir Dawson Bates, the Journal was to be banned from June 1st, 1940.
The Journal was unbowed, declaring: "The Derry Journal as a constitutional organ could plead guilty to nothing, except – if this be an offence – defending at all times the rights and interests of the Catholic and Nationalist minority in the Six Counties."
Behind the scenes, the paper’s managing director, Mrs Molly McCarroll, was already on the train to Belfast.
A resolute and determined woman who had taken charge of the paper after the death of her husband, a Nationalist MP, she knew that she had to get the ban rescinded immediately. Her grandson Colum McCarroll, himself a former editor of the Journal, relates how his grandmother left Derry prepared for a confrontation – but was surprised at the graciousness with which she was received at Stormont, and the speed with which the minister changed his mind.
Ostensibly the Journal had been banned in the interests of wartime security, due to its "pro-German headlines"; in reality, the paper felt its ban was more about teaching it a lesson.
Unusually, among Northern newspapers, the Journal had declared itself neutral on the outbreak of war and had pledged its allegiance to the Free State.
From Stormont's point of view, if the Journal wasn't with them, it was against them.
Notoriously described by its first prime minister, James Craig, as a “Protestant state for a Protestant people”, the fledgling state relied on partisan electoral practices and repressive emergency powers to calm insecurities over its Catholic nationalist minority.
Its most pressing fear was that the IRA might ally with the Irish government and help Germany to invade with the help of this fifth column within its borders.
Indeed, only a month earlier, the IRA had recommended that a German landing in Northern Ireland be in the vicinity of Derry.
Hence a ban on the Journal – a key organ of nationalist expression – was a useful way to warn off the nationalist press and remind it exactly who was in charge.
The Journal's metaphorical knuckles having been well and truly rapped, the paper could now be safely reinstated.
The banning of the Derry Journal, north and south, stands out as a time when, ironically, the fears of two opposing governments had led them to seek protection and reassurance through similar means.
In so doing, both had merely highlighted the fact that – as so often – censorship is symptomatic not of strength, but of insecurity on the part of those in power.
Cumann na Gaedheal lost the election in 1932; the Stormont government survived but eventually collapsed in 1972 and was replaced by direct rule from London. The Derry Journal is still published twice a week.