Lecture at National Print Museum

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NATIONAL PRINT MUSEUM LECTURE SERIES 2010

“Artistic Bombs: The Shemus Cartoons in the Freeman’s Journal, 1920-1924”
by Felix M. Larkin
‘Artistic bombs’—that’s how the Shemus cartoons were described in Dáil Éireann in 1923. Published in Dublin’s Freeman’s Journal newspaper between 1920 and 1924, they were remarkably hard-hitting comments on the events of that period. During the War of Independence, they targeted the increasingly brutal nature of British rule in Ireland. They later attacked the new government of Northern Ireland and the republicans who opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. The cartoonist was an Englishman, Ernest Forbes (1879–1962), who went on to enjoy some success as an artist in London and in his native Yorkshire. His work for the Freeman’s Journal gives a most unusual angle on a bitterly contested period of Irish history. Felix Larkin will present a selection of the Shemus cartoons, with a general introduction on the life and work of Ernest Forbes.

Felix M. Larkin has recently retired from the Irish public service. He studied history at University College Dublin in the years 1968–72, and is vice-chairman of the National Library of Ireland Society. In 2008, he was a founder member of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland. He edited Librarians, poets and scholars: a Festschrift for Dónall Ó Luanaigh (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2007) and has just published Terror and discord: the Shemus cartoons in the Freeman’s Journal, 1920–1924 (A&A Farmar, Dublin, 2009).
7.30pm, Thursday 11th March 2010

Free admission

National Print Museum
Beggars Bush Barracks
Haddington Rd
Dublin 4
Tel: 01 6603770
Email: printmuseumedu@iol.ie
Web: www.nationalprintmuseum.ie

janifor

Nice To Know!
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Morlar

Dammit - just seeing this now & too late to change plans & head in. Thanks for posting that.