WARNING: The details of the banned book may be upsetting to some readers.
For the past 18 years, the Censorship of Publications Board of Ireland hasn’t banned a single book. Now they’ve broken that streak and taken the unusual step of banning a book across the whole of Ireland.
The banning of the book is an unusual move that is sure to anger free speech activists, but the Censorship of Publications Board insists that it was a “last resort.” Shane McCarthy, the Chairman of the Censorship Board, told the Independent that the board had no other option for restricting the book. “We either ban it or allow it,” he said. “It isn’t like a film where you can put in an age restriction. It is black or white.”
The book in question is The Raped Little Runaway by Jean Martin. As the upsetting title implies, the book features “several” detailed scenes of child rape. It was published by the pornographic publisher Star Distributors Ltd.
The five-member board voted unanimously to ban the book. That means that no bookstore in Ireland can order any edition of the book from any publisher. The book becomes the first publication banned in Ireland since Base Guide to London, which was banned for providing morally flexible tourists with directions to “places of ill-repute” in the city of London.
The particularly upsetting nature of the banned book makes it an interesting litmus test for opinions on censorship. The book itself is indefensible, but should any book – no matter how obscene – be completely banned?
Ireland isn’t the only country to ban a book recently. New Zealand made headlines for banning its first book in 22 years – though that book, an acclaimed young adult novel, was of a very different sort than the one Ireland has just banned.
Featured image courtesy of https://slate.me/1RlINsR.