'Fake News' may be a modern term but propaganda, censorship and fact-spinning have a long history. In Fake News and Irish Freedom, a new series from the team behind RTÉ Radio 1's The History Show, we take stories from the War of Independence and the Civil War to explore the ways in which news can be sourced, influenced and, sometimes, faked.
Latest episodes
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29 min
Ep 8: The Pen versus the Sword
‘People are not capable of making up their minds. They can only decide between two sets of propagandists.’ That was the opinion of Ernest Blythe, a minister in the first government…
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29 min
Ep 7: Erskine Childers and Enemies of the State
His name was Erskine Childers and he had one goal: to ensure the collapse of the Irish nation into anarchy. Well, that was what the government said. In autumn 1922 both the Dáil an…
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27 min
Ep 6: The Time the IRA Edited the Cork Examiner
For the first six weeks of the Civil War, the anti-Treaty IRA controlled Cork City. During that time they took over the Cork Examiner, a move that was denounced by the paper’s edit…
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28 min
Ep 5: Cumann na mBan's Propaganda Machine
‘It was a day and night job of secret and dangerous activity against terrible difficulties’. That was how Brigid O’Mullane described her role as Cumann na mBan’s Director of Propag…
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27 min
Ep 4: You Say Irregular, I Say Republican
We focus on the period between the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the early weeks of the Civil War, exploring how both sides of the Treaty divide sought to gain acceptance a…
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25 min
Ep 3: If You Can't Beat Them, Burn Them
During conflicts, controlling the flow of information becomes a primary goal for combatants. Ireland, during the War of Independence, was not an exception to that rule. It was a ha…
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27 min
Ep 2: Fake Battles and Fake Newspapers
‘As soon as propaganda becomes evident, it is bad propaganda’. So said Basil Clarke, a Dublin Castle official during the War of Independence, a time in which British forces created…
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28 min
Ep 1: Breaking the Paper Wall.
Arthur Griffith described censorship as a ‘Paper Wall’ that the British had erected around Ireland with the intention of controlling information. In Episode One we follow republica…