'Fake News' may be a modern term but propaganda, censorship and fact-spinning have a long history. In Fake News and Irish Freedom, a new series from the team behind RTÉ Radio 1's The History Show, we take stories from the War of Independence and the Civil War to explore the ways in which news can be sourced, influenced and, sometimes, faked.
‘People are not capable of making up their minds. They can only decide between two sets of propagandists.’ That was the opinion of Ernest Blythe, a minister in the first government of the Irish Free State and a vocal proponent of censorship. In this final episode, we explore how years of censorship, violence and propaganda transformed the media.
22 Sept 2024
Ep 7: Erskine Childers and Enemies of the State
His name was Erskine Childers and he had one goal: to ensure the collapse of the Irish nation into anarchy. Well, that was what the government said. In autumn 1922 both the Dáil and the press were filled with stories of Childers leading the anti-Treaty war on the state. Yet there was one problem with those stories – most of them were false.
15 Sept 2024
Ep 6: The Time the IRA Edited the Cork Examiner
For the first six weeks of the Civil War, the anti-Treaty IRA controlled Cork City. During that time they took over the Cork Examiner, a move that was denounced by the paper’s editor, George Crosbie. He accused the IRA of turning the paper into a platform for ‘a vile and insidious propaganda containing a great deal more fiction than fact’.
8 Sept 2024
Ep 5: Cumann na mBan's Propaganda Machine
‘It was a day and night job of secret and dangerous activity against terrible difficulties’. That was how Brigid O’Mullane described her role as Cumann na mBan’s Director of Propaganda during the Civil War. O’Mullane was one of many women activists who were integral to republican propaganda projects at home and abroad between 1919 and 1923.
1 Sept 2024
Ep 4: You Say Irregular, I Say Republican
We focus on the period between the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the early weeks of the Civil War, exploring how both sides of the Treaty divide sought to gain acceptance and to discredit their opponents. Those efforts included government censorship, competing propaganda projects and the widespread intimidation of journalists.
25 Aug 2024
Ep 3: If You Can't Beat Them, Burn Them
During conflicts, controlling the flow of information becomes a primary goal for combatants. Ireland, during the War of Independence, was not an exception to that rule. It was a harrowing time for Irish journalists, a time in which newspaper offices were burned down, a time of reprisals, bombs, and the destruction of livelihoods.
18 Aug 2024
Ep 2: Fake Battles and Fake Newspapers
‘As soon as propaganda becomes evident, it is bad propaganda’. So said Basil Clarke, a Dublin Castle official during the War of Independence, a time in which British forces created lots of ‘bad propaganda’ – including fake photos and fake newspapers. Through such schemes they sought to undermine the Irish Bulletin, a renowned republican paper.
11 Aug 2024
Ep 1: Breaking the Paper Wall.
Arthur Griffith described censorship as a ‘Paper Wall’ that the British had erected around Ireland with the intention of controlling information. In Episode One we follow republican efforts to disrupt that censorship, hear of Dáil Éireann’s attempts to counter British propaganda and learn how journalists worked closely with Sinn Féin and the IRA.
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