Periodicals and journalism in twentieth-century Ireland: writing against the grain - review

Abstract

The essays in this collection are expanded versions of papers given at the 2012 conference of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland at Kingston University. Fourteen chapters discuss significant titles from 1899 to 1990, emphasizing connections between newspapers, periodicals, and journalism in the broadest sense. Many of the contributors have close associations with the newspaper trade in Ireland. The remit of the book is to evaluate the cultural presence of a selection of titles and to judge “their journalistic activities—and, by extension, their contributions to Irish society and political culture” (11). This is media history, and the journals chosen for study are, as the editors say, representative rather than famous, “best,” or most long-lived.