Reeks from the Reeks

The weird, neutral land of Ireland was in a stew about censorship last week. The censorship had nothing to do with the war. A farmer had complained to Eire's Book Censorship Bureau that he had found his daughter reading The Tailor and Anstey, a translation from the Gaelic of free-style conversation between an old Cork peasant and his wife. The Bureau (four professors, one a Catholic priest) promptly banned the book.

A motion to censure the censors was introduced into Eire's Senate. Uprose septuagenarian Professor of Metaphysics William Magennis of University College, Dublin, to declare for the censors, adding that "a campaign is being carried on in England, financed by American money, aimed at undermining Christianity."

Down from his native hills stormed the patriarchal, kilted Chief of the Kerry Clan, The McGillycuddy of the Reeks, the heights above the Lakes of Killarney. The McGillycuddy averred that a lack of censorship would spread venereal disease. He knew, he said, how frightful that could be. Anyone well acquainted with Port Said and Buenos Aires would agree.

Other citizens were heard from. Mrs. Helena Concannon, biographer of Irish saints and patriots, lauded the censors as "men who devoted themselves to a revolting task."

The upshot was that the Senate upheld the censors 34-to-2. Meanwhile the censors were feverishly banning not only cheap pornography but such books as Pearl Buck's Dragon Seed, one edition of Baedeker, the essays of William Ralph Inge, longtime "Gloomy Dean" of St. Paul's, and five bedtime stories. They also clamped down on most of the tales of the most distinguished Irish novelists, including Liam O'Flaherty.

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