There are probably thousands of people who thought censorship in this State was gone. It was something out of the 1950s, or from the Ireland of John McGahern's Amongst Women or Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes - and then it was announced that the listings magazine, In Dublin, had been banned by something called the Censorship of Publications Board.
Those thousands would be excused for thinking censorship had ended. The top shelves of newsagents are collapsing under the weight of "adult" magazines. Only a few years ago the ban on Playboy was lifted as if it was an anomaly that had lingered on from a more puritanical age. In Dublin did not even occupy the same lofty position as Playboy and Penthouse in our newsagents, and it has been banned while they remain.
The Censorship of Publications Board, however, has been quietly banning away, but with little or no public awareness. Its decisions have been announced quietly and if published in the newspapers usually as a bit of humour. Publications such as Butchboys, The Best of Asian Babes and Stories for Men Who Need it Bad were obviously pornographic and hardly the stuff of a free speech campaign. The publishers were usually from outside the State, and as Ireland was a small market they were hardly going to appeal the decision.
In Dublin, on the other hand, is well known and within the mainstream of Irish media. Its publisher, Mike Hogan, also publishes Magill, High Ball and the Defence Forces' magazine, An Cosantoir. As far as we know it has not been banned for its editorial content, but because of its advertisements for "health clubs" and massage parlours and for ads seeking staff for such establishments. With circulation of over 10,000 he cannot afford to simply go quietly and so will appeal the decision.
Whatever one's opinions of the advertisements for sex chat phone lines, massage parlours and what appear to even the most naive to be advertisements for call girls, the question is whether the Censorship of Publications Board is the right body to deal with a problem that is far wider than something that might occasionally or frequently be indecent or obscene. The sex advertisements represent income for magazines, and not only for In Dublin, and are an indicator of Ireland's growing sex industry.
The Censorship of Publications Board has a sorry history. It was established by statute in 1929 on recommendations from the Committee on Evil Literature. It was a flawed piece of legislation from the start, even if one believed a censorship board was necessary at all. Nowhere was there any clear definition as to what it was to ban.
The long title of the Act actually refers to "unwholesome" literature. For the next 30 years or so the board defined what was unwholesome, indecent and obscene and banned some of the most important literary works of the 20th century in an effort to impose conformity and keep out evil influences. Many of the influences it wanted to keep out were, of course, Irish.
James Joyce's Stephen Hero was banned, but strangely enough, not Ulysses. Samuel Beckett, Walter Macken, Sean O'Faolain, Edna O'Brien and Kate O'Brien as well as Brendan Behan and many, many more found their writings banned. Possibly the last major work of literature to be banned was John McGahern's The Dark in 1965. The Censorship of Publications Board was both a star chamber and inquisitor. It ruined careers and lives to keep Ireland safe.
Curiously it never banned anything in Irish, even when it banned the translation. Frank O'Connor's translation of Brian Merriman's The Midnight Court was banned. The original Irish version of the poem was left in circulation and was even on the school syllabus.
IT also banned newspapers and other publications. The News of the World was banned and often sent home by Irish emigrants so family and friends could get a taste of pagan England. Students going away to work would bring back banned books that were passed around colleges and schools.
The board was also given the task of ensuring that nothing that promoted or advertised the "unnatural prevention of conception" or the procurement of abortions was available in Ireland. This provision was often used against British newspapers and magazines.
As the board grew increasingly liberal as to how it went about its job, it often simply asked that offending advertisements be withdrawn. This is what happened to Cosmopolitan in 1989 and Company magazine in 1990.
Madonna's Sex, a book of explicit photographs of the singer, was the last great cause celebre. It was banned in 1992, but not before 2,500 copies had been sold between its importation and the announcement of the ban. At £25 a copy that was probably all that were going to buy it anyway.
The Censorship of Publications Board is a dated body that has no place in modern Ireland. Its five appointed, part-time members examine material sent in by members of the public or Customs, and they rule behind closed doors on whether the material is indecent or obscene. For cultural reasons the board's role as a moral guardian is simply not tenable and is increasingly impossible due to a range of factors including technology.
If the activities advertised in In Dublin are legal, then it is a gross injustice to ban it. If the activities are illegal then some mechanism should exist that would allow the publisher, Mr Hogan, to be charged and then defend himself in a court of law.
Such a provision exists in the area of drugs. The Misuse of Drugs Act includes a provision banning any encouragement to use illegal drugs or accept advertisements that might do the same. If sex advertisements in magazines are encouraging illegal activity, then the offending publication should be prosecuted and the publishers allowed to defend themselves openly in a court of law.
That's how democracies do things.
Michael Foley is a lecturer in journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology