Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
Description
Communism and Modernity in inter-war Ireland
The pervasive scale and fervent nature of popular responses to communism in the 1930s Irish Free State have been noted by historians but rarely analysed in much depth. Drawing on research in the archives of the Jesuit order in Ireland, this paper will consider some of the motives underlying this phenomena. It will make the case that anti-communism in 1930s was closely bound up with broader clerical anxieties about the impact of ‘modernity’ on Irish society. It will argue that the increasing preoccupation with anti-communism that developed during the 1930s, which reflected trends evident elsewhere in inter-war Europe, was part of a broader shift that saw greater emphasis on sexual immorality and growing demands that the State accommodate Catholic social principles.