The Anti - Jazz Campaign 1934

brennan1979

New article from the Irish Story website about the Anti - Jazz campaign in Leitrim in 1934.

http://www.theirishstory.com/2011/07/01/the-anti-jazz-campaign/

Leitrim was to become the centre of the Anti – Jazz campaign and its leader was the parish priest of Cloone, Fr. Peter Conefrey. Conefrey was an ardent cultural nationalist and was heavily involved in the promotion of Irish music and dancing and the Irish language. He devoted his life to making parishioners wear home – spun clothes and become self – sufficient in food.


On New Year’s Day 1934 over three thousand people from South Leitrim and surrounding areas marched through Mohill to begin the Anti – Jazz campaign. The procession was accompanied by five bands and the demonstrators carried banners inscribed with slogans such as ‘Down with Jazz’ and ‘Out with Paganism.’ A meeting was then held in the Canon Donohoe Memorial Hall organised by Fr. Conefrey and Canon Masterson, the parish priest of Mohill.

Owen

A great Cork band - Cartoon - called their album Ban the Use of Jazz Music, and touches on this subject too.

The article's hilarious - priests flip out over sacriligeous dances and want them banned, but then a year later the clergy all apply for dance licenses for their parochial halls so they can earn a lot of money from it. Seems like good old corrupt Catholic Ireland at it's best.