Local historian behind new RTÉ Radio series

Fake news may be a modern concept but propaganda, censorship and fact-spinning have a long history, as do efforts to manage the news through legislation, intimidation and violence.

Those topics are explored in a new eight-part history series that debuted on RTÉ Radio One on Sunday, August 11. Titled Fake News and Irish Freedom, the series is written and produced by Westmeath historian Ian Kenneally.

Presented by journalist Flor MacCarthy, Fake News and Irish Freedom takes stories from the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War, the years 1919 to 1923, and explores the ways in which news was – and often still is – sourced, packaged, presented and, sometimes, faked.

Apart from Ian Kenneally, the series has many connections to the Athlone area, with contributions by historian John Gibney and Westmeath Independent editor Tadhg Carey, as well as actors John McGlynn and Nicola O’Sullivan, who bring life to documents and letters from those extraordinary times.

During the War of Independence and the Civil War the fighting was often confined to particular counties and regions but news and propaganda knew no such boundaries. Indeed, what was happening in Ireland was an international story and foreign journalists flocked to the country. They too became enmeshed in the war of words.

The early episodes focus on the War of Independence when, as Arthur Griffith once said, the British had erected a ‘Paper Wall’ around Ireland. Through censorship, propaganda, and through their dominance of news agencies, successive British governments were able to restrict and redirect news and opinions of which they disapproved.

Censorship was merely one of the tools available to British forces. In July 1920, Dublin Castle opened the Public Information Department, with the aim of controlling the flow of news in, and from, Ireland.

The new department was managed by an experienced English journalist named Basil Clarke, who would later become a pioneer in the British public relations industry. Clarke advocated a system he called ‘propaganda by news’, advising his colleagues in Dublin Castle to provide journalists with official reports and statements that were compatible with ‘verisimilitude’ – that is to say that they should give the appearance of truth.

Other members of the British crown forces took a more active approach, particularly a group of officers attached to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) who conducted a series of misjudged propaganda schemes.

These schemes, many of which involved the actual creation of fake news, included a report on the so-called ‘Battle of Tralee’ in which the Crown forces had, apparently, fought off an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush. Irish newspapers uncovered the truth soon after the report’s appearance: the so-called battle had actually been a photo shoot staged in Dalkey, County Dublin.

Republicans likewise sought to advance and publicise their cause. In January 1919, they created a new parliament, Dáil Éireann, and sent envoys abroad to gain support for an Irish republic.

Later that year, the Dáil formed a newspaper called the Irish Bulletin. Produced in clandestine circumstances in a series of Dublin hideouts that paper provided a formidable challenge to British rule in Ireland. In response, Dublin Castle and the crown forces, sought to destroy the Bulletin, even to the extent of producing a fake version of the infamous Irish newspaper.

The War of Independence was a harrowing time for journalists, with many newspaper offices and printworks attacked by the Crown forces. Athlone was not immune to such violence and the town’s printworks was destroyed in November 1920, forcing the Westmeath Independent to close until February 1922.

The paper reopened to a new Ireland, one in which the Anglo Irish Treaty had been signed and ratified. Republicanism split over the Treaty, leading to a Civil War that began in June 1922 and which is explored in the later episodes of the series.

Shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, the new Irish Provisional Government instituted strict censorship that aimed to delegitimise its anti-Treaty opponents, providing newspapers with a list of acceptable and unacceptable terminology.

For example, the government ordered journalists to refer to the anti-Treaty IRA as ‘Irregulars’ or ‘Bandits’. Irregular quickly became a catch-all term for the anti-Treaty IRA and passed into later accounts of the conflict. The vast majority of Irish newspapers, including the Westmeath Independent, supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty, a fact that dismayed opponents of the agreement, who accused the press of misleading the public. To counter mainstream press coverage a group of anti-Treaty figures, including Liam Mellows and Erskine Childers, created a newspaper titled Poblacht na h-Eireann.

Other opponents of the Treaty sought to silence the media. During this period, the anti-Treaty IRA threatened journalists and destroyed newspaper offices, such as those of the Sligo Champion and the Dublin-based Freeman’s Journal. In one remarkable case, it took over the offices of the Cork Examiner, which was briefly transformed into an anti-Treaty newspaper.

Ultimately, the series explores how a combination of censorship, intimidation and propaganda had a profound impact on Ireland during these years. It was a time of fake news and media manipulation, a time when British and then Irish censors attempted to control the press.

It was a time of raids and rebel newspapers, published by small groups of men and women in hideouts across the country. It was a time when journalists chose sides, a time when, as in the case of the Westmeath Independent, owners, editors and staff paid a heavy price for doing their jobs.