Whither Ireland? : Peadar O’Donnell, Communism, and Libel in the Free State

In April of 1932, the Irish writer, revolutionary, and political activist Peadar O’Donnell took a libel case against the editor of the Irish Rosary, the Very Reverend H. V. Casey O.P. for claims he had visited communist Russia. This case illuminates transnational connections between Ireland, Britain, and Russia as well as throwing light upon the relationship of the Free State to censorship and literature. Set in the immediate aftermath of the ‘red scare’ election of 1932, O’Donnell’s trial is an important case in Irish literary history, as well as being a public spectacle for the launch of W. B. Yeats’s society for the promotion of Irish writing, the Irish Academy of Letters.