Intimidation of journalists was common in 1920s Ireland

Gerry Adams got himself in hot water with journalists in the past week. 

Speaking at a fundraising function in York, Adams described how Michael Collins’ response to Independent Newspapers’ criticism of the fight for freedom was to “dispatch volunteers to the Independent’s offices” where “they held the editor at gunpoint and then dismantled and destroyed the entire printing machinery”.

The Chairman of Independent News & Media interpreted these remarks as a ‘veiled threat’ to free media in the country.