Blast from the Past: Archive coverage of the Playboy riots and the anti-jazz campaign

Examiner 180: The Irish Examiner marks 180 years in existence this month, and this new weekly series recalls some of the paper's coverage of the arts and culture sphere

A protest meeting against immoral literature at Grand Parade, Cork, in 1927. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive 

As can be seen from the pieces below, the cultural sphere has created plenty of controversy through the decades, not least as conservative forces clashed with the more progressive views expressed on stage or page.

In the first archive piece, we see the infamous reaction of an organised group from the Gaelic League to The Playboy of The Western World. Then the Cork Examiner, the paper was eight pages, with the front page made up entirely of advertisements. No photographs appeared in the paper until about 1911.