Sean O’Faoláin, The Bell and the voice of Irish dissent

Abstract

In October 1940, The Bell magazine was launched in Dublin under the editorship of Sean O’Faoláin. ‘Whoever you are’, declared O’Faoláin in his initial editorial, ‘Gentile or Jew, Protestant or Catholic, priest or layman, Big House or Small House – The Bell is yours’. These words rang true throughout O’Faoláin’s tenure at the helm of this influential periodical and ensured he was at the centre of the national dialogue concering Ireland’s identity. My research will identify and examine how his highly politicised - and often censored - editorials served as the springboard for an exploration of the collective malaise of a burgeoning yet often stunted post-revolutionary society. Ireland of the 1940s is often maligned as a cultural wasteland, isolated politically and artistically as the war against Fascism raged elsewhere. As the new Ireland attempted to define itself, Seamus Deane remarked upon the era in rather bleak tones: ‘Ireland ceased to ...