1881 Yeats and "The Countess Cathleen".

... The statement "censorship was merely formalised by the Censor of Publications Act 1928" is not proved, despite the fact that long before the 1928 Censorship of Publications Act there is sufficient evidence to show that attempts at censorship were occurring in the strongholds of the Roman Catholic Church and in the up and coming socialist political groupings. The United Irishmen and Maud Gonne took it upon themselves to try to censor and were actively supported by the Newspapers and some writers as well as the Church. The United Irishmen, and Arthur Griffith of Sinn Fein (later to be the first President of the Irish Free State), acted as a pressure group mainly focused against the Abbey theatre and the work of W.B. Yeats. Maud Gonne was very clear about her objective when she said "We must subordinate all freedoms till we get our number one aim political freedom", she had

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