Sinn Féin, socialists and “McSheeneys”: representations of Jews in early twentieth-century Ireland

ABSTRACT

During the decades immediately prior to the creation of an independent Irish state in 1922, nationalists and socialists in Ireland struggled to reconcile their progressive principles with challenges posed by the arrival of an increasing number of Jewish immigrants. This article examines how at that time the press, both mainstream and agitational, occasionally gave public expression to anti-Semitic prejudices, stereotypes and outright hostility. Such discourses are contextualized within a framework in which Irish political leaders and others had earlier asserted that Ireland was the only country in the world that could not be charged with persecuting the Jews. I suggest that some representations of Jews in the media prior to independence foreshadowed and help to explain the context of later official Irish policies towards Jewish refugees.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Colum Kenny is Emeritus Professor of Communications at Dublin City University and a journalist. He has served as a board member of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and of the EU Media Desk in Dublin. Called to the Irish bar in 1974, he is a founding and council member of the Irish Legal History Society and author of a dozen books including The Power of Silence: Silent Communication in Daily Life (London: Karnac, 2011). His many articles include “Finding a Voice or Fitting In? Migrants and Media in the New Ireland” in Media, Culture and Society, 32 (2010).