American propaganda and Ireland during world war one: the work of the Committee on Public Information

Abstract

Soon after America entered the war in April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on Public Information (CPI) which used the tools of propaganda and persuasion to fight the war in the US and in allied, enemy and neutral foreign countries. This article examines the CPI’s work in relation to Ireland and Irish issues during the First World War. Among the questions examined are: What was the nature of the CPI’s Irish work between 1917 and 1918? What does it reveal about first, the CPI and second, Wilson’s view of Irish-American loyalty during the war? Why did the CPI’s British and Irish services become involved in Irish military recruitment? Was there any contact between the CPI officials in London and their British counterparts in the Ministry of Information to co-ordinate the push to encourage Irishmen to enlist? How did the CPI negotiate a space for its messages in post-rising Ireland where home rulers, republicans, unionists and British authorities pursued their respective agendas? The article seeks to add an American dimension to the narrative of Ireland and the First World War and examines themes relating to Anglo-American co-operation on the Irish question and diasporic identity.