Ireland
Ireland's Censorship of Publications Act of 1929 established a Censorship Board that banned thousands of books over several decades, including works by many of the country's most celebrated writers — among them Samuel Beckett, Edna O'Brien, and John McGahern. Many books were banned on moral grounds, particularly for references to contraception or sexual content. The law was liberalised in 1967, and most previously banned books were released; Ireland today has no formal book censorship regime.
Banned books
A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms is about a love affair between the expatriate American Henry and Catherine Barkley against the backdrop of the First World War, cynical soldiers, fighting and the displacement of populations. The publication of A Farewell to Arms cemented Hemingway's stature as a modern American writer, became his first best-seller, and is described by biographer Michael Reynolds as "the premier American war novel from that debacle World War I."
Government / national · 1929 · lifted
Borstal Boy
Brendan Behan
**From Amazon.com:** This miracle of autobiography and prison literature begins: "Friday, in the evening, the landlady shouted up the stairs: 'Oh God, oh Jesus, oh Sacred Heart, Boy, there's two gentlemen here to see you.' I knew by the screeches of her that the gentlemen were not calling to inquire after my health . . . I grabbed my suitcase, containing Pot. Chlor., Sulph Ac, gelignite, detonators, electrical and ignition, and the rest of my Sinn Fein conjurer's outfit, and carried it to the
Government / national · 1958 · lifted
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
Government / national · 1932 · lifted
Dubliners
James Joyce
James Joyce's disillusion with the publication of Dubliners in 1914 was the result of ten years battling with publishers, resisting their demands to remove swear words, real place names and much else, including two entire stories. Although only 24 when he signed his first publishing contract for the book, Joyce already knew its worth: to alter it in any way would 'retard the course of civilisation in Ireland'. Joyce's aim was to tell the truth -- to create a work of art that would reflect life i
Government / national · 1941 · lifted
Duffy
James Plunkett
Government / national · 1969 · lifted
East of Eden
John Steinbeck
Government / national · 1953 · lifted
Elmer Gantry
Sinclair Lewis
Government / national · 1927 · lifted
Girls in Their Married Bliss
Edna O'Brien
Government / national · 1964 · lifted
Marriage and Morals
Bertrand Russell
Marriage & Morals is the great book by great Philosopher of 20th c Bertrand Russell
Government / national · 1931 · lifted
Married Love
Marie Stopes
Government / national · 1931 · lifted
Samuel Beckett: His Works and His Critics
Raymond Federman
Government / national · 1972 · lifted
The Barracks
John McGahern
Government / national · 1964 · lifted
The Butcher Boy
Patrick McCabe
Government / national · 1992 · lifted
The Collected Stories of Seán O'Faoláin
Seán O'Faoláin
Government / national · 1935 · lifted
The Country Girls
Edna O'Brien
Government / national · 1960 · lifted
The Dark
John McGahern
The Dark, John McGaherns second novel, is set in rural Ireland. The themes that McGahern has made his own are adolescence and a guilty, yet uncontrollable sexuality that is contorted and twisted by both a puritanical state religion and a strange, powerful and ambiguous relationship between son and widower father.Against a background evoked with quiet, undemonstrative mastery, McGahern explores with precision and tenderness a human situation, superficially very ordinary, but inwardly an agony of
Government / national · 1965 · lifted
The Ginger Man
J. P. Donleavy
Government / national · 1956 · lifted
The Informer
Liam O'Flaherty
Government / national · 1932 · lifted
The Lonely Girl
Edna O'Brien
Government / national · 1962 · lifted
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
Brian Moore
Government / national · 1956 · lifted
The Tailor and Ansty
Eric Cross
Government / national · 1942 · lifted