"The Familiar Style of Decaying Colonial Powers": 1 Irish National Newspapers and Portugal's Colonial Wars, 1961-1974

• Published in: Estudios irlandeses 2016-01 (11), p.108
• Main Author: Mercereau, Jean N F
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Colonialism; de Valera, Eamon (1882-1975); Dictators; Economic crisis; Politics; World War II
• ISSN: 1699-311X

[...]following the country's membership of the UN in 1955, and particularly under Séan Lemass from 1959 onwards, Ireland played a particularly active role in the United Nations' decolonisation policies (Lee 1990: 369). [...]more than a real sympathy towards Portugal's colonial policy, which would be particularly surprising coming from a newspaper essentially dedicated to defend de Valera's ideal of a Catholic, Gaelic, rural and self-sufficient Ireland, the Irish Press's relative indifference towards the question of Portugal's regime and its mild criticism of Salazar's colonial policies may be justified by the fact that, from the late 1960s onwards, the newspaper was more committed to the increasingly complex question of Northern Ireland and its growing repercussions in the Republic. [...]the resurgence of interest in a Portuguese situation that had been in the forefront of Irish media and politics in the 1930s, after years of relative indifference following the end of World War II and through most of the 1950s, reflects the evolution of the interest shown by the political actors as well as by the population in general. By questioning, for instance, the plebiscite on the 1933 constitution in which every abstention counted as a yes vote, wondering at the systematic absence of opposition candidates in the general elections of November 1942 and November 1945 or underlining the role of censorship all through the 1930s and 1940s. Besides economic and social problems, the breakout of the financial crisis in 2007 led both Ireland and Portugal to ask for a bailout, in November 2010 and April 2011 respectively.