I doubt if a Guy or Doll opening THE CORK EXAMINER, THE IRISH INDEPENDENT or THE IRISH PRESS on Monday 4 September 1939 will have learnt that World War II had broken out the previous day. Or opening the New York Times, TIMES of London or Moscow’s papers. But many of them will have read about Jack Lynch, who that previous day had not stood idly by.
“Typically backward and out of touch, the Irish” I can imagine a Daily Telegraph reader discovering this BLOG snorting, and he would be no worse than
many of today’s paid Irish commentators. For instance, those who claim that the war which Britain declared on Germany in 1939 and later enveloped more than one continent was described in Ireland as “The Emergency.” I hesitate to describe all such people as liars, for some of those who repeat the untruth do so in ignorance.And Invincible
Ignorance, I’m told on what I believe to be Good Authority, can save one’s soul from the Fires of Hell.
I never thought Ruairi Quinn ignorant, though,like that Ragged-Schooled Philanthropist, Bob Geldof, he is an alumnus of Blackrock College. Not only is Quinn brilliant but he is a star amongst a galaxy of Quinns. So when I picked up his autobiography “Straight Left” I was disappointed to find the canard about the Emergency.
The European situation in 1939 posed dangers for Ireland and Dail Eireann approved a Declaration of Emergency to meet them. The Declaration required the suspension of some rights enshrined in the Constitution enacted by the people shortly before. Censorship attempted to limit citizens’ exposure to the propaganda of the belligerents and give neither side the excuse of attacking Ireland. But as most Irish people spoke English and the BBC was widely heard, they could not but have been subjected to the British slant on things, which was not always either straight or left.
The Irish newspapers and Radio Eireann reported on the war and I believe letters passed between Britain and Ireland without being steamed open. The novelist Elizabeth Bowen, from County Cork, interviewed people in Ireland including James Dillon, the only TD who advocated Ireland’s allying the country with Britain, and reported privately to Churchill. She was a spy.
But the word “canard” reminds me of the story of the two women chatting over their garden fence –
“My husband works for Cunard and is paid £40,000 a year”
“My husband works very hard too, but is paid only half that.”
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