Dr Aoife Bhreatnach has spent the past year getting inside the prudish and outraged mind of the Irish book censor for her podcast series.
Over the past century, thousands of books were banned in what was one of the most draconian censorship regimes in Europe as our moral guardians fought to rid the country of any hint of smut.
They ranged from literary novels such as
Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger,
Country Girls by Edna O’Brien and
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller to pulp fiction and Madonna’s book of explicit photos,
Sex, which was banned as late as November 1992.