Ballymena, Bangor and Belfast: Hyper-Localism, Regional Decision-Making and Local Film Censorship in Northern Ireland

Abstract

This article explores local film censorship in Northern Ireland, examining the ways in which individual local authorities and committees imposed their own conceptions of what was acceptable for the cinema-going public. Drawing on material from the Public Records Office Northern Ireland (PRONI) this work begins with the setting up of local censorship systems in the newly created Northern Irish state in the 1920s, and maps the interventions by a range of local councils across the decades including objections to films such as Frankenstein, The Outlaw and Garden of Eden. It offers a comparative focus of a specific geographical region and argues that understandings of film censorship must move beyond a straightforward national verses local model in order to acknowledge a more nuanced picture that encompasses local sensitivities, regional politics and religious feeling.