Darren Fennessy

Media Studies
Irish Press Essay
Introduction
In this essay I am going to discuss the history of the Irish Press newspaper and the role
Éamon De Valera and his family played in it and how it was used as a political
propaganda tool for the Fianna Fáil party. The ideology of the paper and Fianna Fáil will
also be discussed with reference to various theorists. Hegemony and counter hegemony,
where it arises will be talked about in relation to how the Irish Press was used for not
only De Valera’s own visionary goals, but also for Fianna Fáil’s. I will also discuss the
target audience and why they were specifically the main audience of the paper.

History of the Irish Press

Éamon De Valera, once the Taoiseach and later the President of Ireland was the founder
of the Irish Press newspaper. The newspaper was first published in 1931 and was in
circulation until 1995. De Valera went to the United States of America in the late 1920s to
raise funds for the newspaper prior its publishing. While in the U.S. he appealed to the
many Irish-Americans who still had ties to their home country. De Valera gave many
speeches that raised eighty thousand dollars before he returned to Ireland with money that
would go towards a paper that would spread the word of the Fianna Fáil party. More
money was needed to fund the paper, so De Valera announced that Ireland would be
paying their debt back to the U.S. raised during the War of Independence. He went to the
U.S. to pay all the benefactors and in turn urged those same people to fund the new Irish
newspaper. In doing this he pulled off a stroke of genius that gave him all the funds he
needed for the Irish Press. A newspaper that would serve the national interest would be
published as he had wanted it to be.

The Irish Press newspaper became a tool of political power not only for De Valera
himself over the years, but also for the Fianna Fáil party as mentioned earlier. Éamon De
Valera had what one could call an insatiable urge for power, so he would use the
newspaper to his advantage over the many years in office and in its distribution
throughout his lifetime. The De Valera family played a large role in the Irish Press over
its life and in some respects they still do hold all the power. Over the years the Irish Press

-1-
 Darren Fennessy
Media Studies
Irish Press Essay
spawned other titles published on different timeline, namely; The Evening Press and the
Sunday Press, both of which went into oblivion when the Irish Press went there. It was a
threefold tragedy when the company folded with €4.76 million down.

Ideology
The ideology of the Irish Press newspaper was to appeal to the ordinary people of Ireland
in every corner of the country. The paper would reach people who did not yet have
electricity so in turn had no radio and it would feed them the ideals of the Fianna Fáil
party in many ways. We can read in text books that ideology is, i.e.; “A complex term
relating to the ideas and understanding about the social world and how these ideas are
related to the distribution of power in society, also about how ideas and values are posed
to as ‘natural’.” Branston & Stafford (2003 p.499). In effect, the Fianna Fáil Government,
whether in power or not, always had the Irish Press from 1931 to spread their ideological
ideals to the people of Ireland in the printed word. They appeased to the peoples needs
and wants giving them what they wanted between the pages of a broadsheet newspaper.
Éamon De Valera decided that the Fianna Fáil party needed a so called “mouthpiece” to
talk to the country on behalf of the party, or he put it, the people needed a voice.

Karl Marx put forward the theory of “conflict perspective”, which says that society has
groups or classes whose interest’s conflict with each other. It could be said that De Valera
was trying to unite the people under one voice, in essence unite the classes under the
banner of Fianna Fáil and al their ideological views. This would bring about a shared
harmony and shared values system in Ireland if successful, which is an ideological view
of functionalism. The premise of the Irish Press in the mind of Éamon De Valera was not
only to give the people news and sport, but also to give them the Fianna Fáil party as it
should be seen by the people. It is after all the dominant class, or in the case of Ireland,
the Government that would spout their ideology to the masses and create a mindset for
their following sixteen years from 1932. Marx himself thought that any such ideologies
were false consciousnesses that were those of the ruling classes (Marx & Engels).

-2-
 Darren Fennessy
Media Studies
Irish Press Essay
Hegemony and Counter Hegemony
Hegemony as a theory according to an Italian Marxist by the name of Antonio Gramsci,
tells us that different groups in our society compete for control and ultimately, power. In
terms of the Irish Press, it was of course the power of persuasion that lasted for sixteen
years of the Fianna Fáil party’s reign. One could say that it worked like a charm to have
the Irish Press newspaper in its grasp, that is to say under the auspices of Éamon De
Valera, commander in chief. Hegemony dictates that power is a achieved through
persuasion and consent, but this power must always be negotiated and the modern world
as we know it today, not much unlike that of the 1930s, the media play a huge role in
sustaining the hegemonic status-quo.

In counter hegemonic cases, many of Fianna Fáil’s policies that were adopted in their
sixteen years of time in power were indeed counter hegemonic and were lauded in the
press, i.e. the Irish Press newspaper and so forth. The Party released political prisoners,
lifted the ban on the Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.), stopped land annuities, all of which
would have been counter hegemonic to the Irish people of the time (not to the British of
course) and would certainly have given Fianna Fáil renewed support from all corners.
Indeed, all corners would have heard about their new policies due the wide reaching
circulation of the Irish Press newspaper.

Target Audience
Éamon De Valera and his Fianna Fáil party always wanted to appeal to the masses and to
reach the masses, the Irish Press newspaper was used as a tool to an end. The Party
focused a lot on people from rural areas and the paper made their tendrils reach far and
wider into the rural farming communities who wanted to know what was happening
outside their daily lives and how their country was being run. The Party appealed to the
people because it was essentially a Republican Party and now the Irish Press was a voice
for Fianna Fáil, reaching out to inform all and it, too was Republican and
characteristically Nationalistic. Traits like these were not seen since the 1916 Rising and
people wanted something that gave them identity, especially so rural people and reading

-3-
 Darren Fennessy
Media Studies
Irish Press Essay
the newspaper of the leader of their Party in power was something that empowered them
as well.

The De Valera Family

When Éamon De Valera went to the United States to look for funds to start up the Irish
Press, he was appealing to many Irish-American’s sentimentality and back home in
Ireland he was exploiting supporters for the same gain. Little did anyone know at the time
that they would be essentially funding a newspaper that would remain under the ultimate
control of the De Valera family for a total of 64 years from its founding in 1931 until its
collapse in September 1995. A lot of the money in Ireland was collected from supporters
on a door-to-door basis, where it was seen as a cause for the people, not as a business it
turned out to be. Éamon De Valera used very flexible company laws in the state of
Delaware in the United States to establish a trust fund that in actual fact had the effect of
vesting ultimate control wholly in the De Valera family. The paper grew into a media
powerhouse and at the helm was the De Valera family. It became a media empire of
dictatorial control out of which grew the Irish Press Group.

Conclusion
The Irish Press newspaper was a tool used by the Fianna Fáil political party during their
long reign of sixteen years (1932 to 1948). It was used by them to get across their
ideological agendas to the people of Ireland (perhaps more so that of Éamon De Valera),
specifically the rural people of the country who were the main target audience of the
paper and the party. Hegemonic and counter hegemonic forces were at work throughout
the life of the paper, but it was more so at the beginning that it was counter hegemonic.
This was shown with the release of political prisoners and the doing away with land
annuities. Later of course, the paper became more hegemonic with the spawning of what
was a media empire under the banner of the Irish Press Group. The role of the De Valera
family played in the paper was there to the very end in September 1995, as it was they
who had complete monetary and editorial control due to massive funds entrusted in
Delaware, U.S.A.

-4-
 Darren Fennessy
Media Studies
Irish Press Essay
References
Websites
Clare Library (Date unknown) Éamon De Valera (1882-1975) [online] Available at:
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/people/eamon.htm [accessed 12 January, 2005]

Archives Department (Date unknown) Aiken, Frank [online] Available at:

http://www.ucd.ie/archives/html/collections/aiken-frank.htm [accessed 12 January, 2005]

Dwyer, R (6, November, 2004) Truth in the news…how FF sold out its own in the Irish Press
Saga [online] Available at:
http://www.irishexaminer.com/text/story.asp?j=167233287604&p=y67z33z885y8&n=167233288
602 [accessed 13 January, 2005]

O’ Connell, J (3 February, 2002) De Valera, Fianna Fáiland the Irish Press: The Truth in the
News? By Mark O’ Brien [online] Available at:
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2002/02/03/story5517728.asp [accessed 13 January, 2005]

Kelly, J (21 June, 1995) When Management are the Luddites [online] Available at:
http://www.adnet.ie/xpress/0621.htm#luddite [accessed 13 January, 2005]

Hennessy, B (Date unknown) Éamon De Valera and the Making of Ireland [online] Available at:

http://www.loyno.edu/history/journal/Hennessy.htm [accessed 14 January, 2005]

Downing, J (21 November, 2001) De Valera used backers to found paper under his control, book
claims [online] Available at: http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2001/11/21/story17673.asp
[accessed 17 January, 2005]

Author unknown (Date unknown) Fianna Fáil in Power 1932- 1948 [online] Available at:
http://www.templehistory.dna.ie/IrishB/fianna_fail_in_power_1932.htm [accessed 17 January,
2005]

Author unknown (Date unknown) New Books – De Valera, Fianna Fáil and the Irish Press
[online] Available at: http://www.sinnfeinbookshop.com/en-us/dept_3.html [accessed 17 January
2005]

-5-