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In Dublin, back in 1981, during the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis—an assembly held yearly for what was largely considered the political arm of the Irish Republican Army—Danny Morrison, who had risen to the position of Sinn Féin’s head of publicity two years prior, posed a challenge: “Who genuinely thinks we can secure victory via the ballot box? Yet will anyone here protest if, with a ballot paper in this hand and an Armalite in the other, we seize power in Ireland?”
It’s not hard to picture what Margaret Thatcher, who took office as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1979, must have felt observing this. Her frustration likely escalated in October 1984, when the I.R.A. set off an explosive in a Brighton hotel that narrowly missed her. The I.R.A.’s declaration afterwards—“Remember we only need to get lucky once, you’ll need to get lucky every time”—underscored that she was confronting a formidable adversary, equally adept at impactful and unforgettable pronouncements as at deploying explosives. In a speech the subsequent year, Thatcher declared, “We should strive to discover strategies to deprive the terrorist and the hijacker of the media attention on which their activities thrive.” She urged the British media to exercise self-control in order to forestall situations where a representative for Sinn Féin could appear on television following an I.R.A. act of violence and calmly assert that it was all in the name of Irish liberation. What transpired afterward constitutes the subject of Roisin Agnew’s insightful and meticulously edited documentary film “The Ban.”
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Morrison belonged to a wave of activists who assumed control of the Sinn Féin leadership during the early eighties, as did Gerry Adams, who became the president of the Party in 1983. Together with Martin McGuinness, Adams’s second-in-command in Derry, they comprised a powerful cohort—eloquent and exceptionally skilled media personalities. If you needed a succinct sound bite, Morrison could always deliver. If you desired a more nuanced and sophisticated set of arguments in support of the Republican cause, then you would seek out Adams. Of the three, McGuinness projected the most determination and directness. The capacity of these men to speak like reasonable politicians while essentially directing a merciless campaign of terror constituted part of the perceived menace they presented.
As soon as the inaugural television station was established in Dublin, in 1961, the Irish government conferred upon itself the power to censor content intended for broadcast. In 1971, it went further, effectively prohibiting organizations such as Sinn Féin and the I.R.A. from appearing on the airwaves. This prohibition persisted until 1994, coinciding with the year the I.R.A. announced a ceasefire.
The British lacked legislation as comprehensive in its silencing effect as this. However, in October 1988, Thatcher’s government concluded that her initial appeal for media self-censorship was insufficient. What ensued ranks as one of the most farcical, self-defeating, and awkward episodes within the extensive history of British efforts to address the Irish issue.
The British government stipulated that the voices of Sinn Féin or I.R.A. representatives, among others, were barred from being broadcast on television or radio. Broadcasters soon identified a loophole in this prohibition: they started employing actors to supply voice-overs for interviews featuring Sinn Féin leaders and other individuals impacted by the restriction. Throughout the six years that the ban remained in effect (paralleling the Irish ban, it concluded in 1994), while watching interviews on the British news channels, you would attempt to determine which actor was providing the dubbing. I was residing in Dublin at the time, and it was an era when Mrs. Thatcher’s dominant presence cast a long shadow. I questioned what purpose she believed these voice-overs accomplished, besides amusing the populace. For instance, did she listen to Stephen Rea portraying Adams? Among all the actors, Rea distinguished himself. Owing to his marriage to a former I.R.A. bomber, reservations existed concerning his presence on air. But the fundamental issue lay in his capacity to flawlessly and uncannily embody any role he undertook. Onstage, he had portrayed Lord Haw-Haw (who broadcast on behalf of Hitler); he had portrayed Brendan Bracken, Churchill’s minister of information; he had portrayed Clov, in Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame”; he had portrayed Oscar Wilde. Now, he functioned as one of the actors who lent their voice to Adams. On occasion, he even sounded superior to Adams—exhibiting less self-importance and pomposity. As Adams himself observes in “The Ban,” Rea’s rendition “was a notable enhancement of my monotone.”
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