In assembling this resource, I relied heavily on the digital Irish Times news archive, which has scanned images of its newspapers dating back to 1859. While this archive was indispensable to the completion of this project, it is flawed and incomplete. The catalogue corrects these mistakes when possible. For example, many newspaper issues are incorrectly scanned, often missing a page or including duplicate pages, which skews the pagination. The catalogue lists the correct page number for each article, and therefore does not always align with the page numbers given in the Irish Times archive.
Additionally, some newspaper pages and issues are incoherently scanned or missing from the archive altogether, which necessitated the use of three microfilm reserves at the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University, The National Library of Ireland, and the Boston College Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Library. Even so, there were three dates across the twenty-six years for which I was unable to find archival records: 31 August 1956, 2 September 1957, and 28 March 1959. In the 1956 instance, just two pages from the paper were missing and noted with this image:
Irish Times, 31 August 1956, pp. 5-6.
During this period, “Cruiskeen Lawn” most frequently appeared on page six. The note seems like a joke—as though O’Nolan slipped it in himself in the event that anyone should ever seek to track down every last “Cruiskeen Lawn” column he published (something about those squiggly lines says “hah!”). The missing pages from 1957 and 1959 are due to absent scans of the entire paper on those dates. It is possible that they exist elsewhere, within an archive I could not find over the course of my research.
My hope is that in making this catalogue available, others will use it for their research, and help refine it by adding information.
While the publication rate of “Cruiskeen Lawn” is hard to gauge in this format, trends such as on which page or in what language the column most often appeared during certain years are easy to observe. Below is a graph and accompanying table of the frequency by year “Cruiskeen Lawn” appeared in the Irish Times from 1940 to 1966.
Publication Frequency of “Cruiskeen Lawn”
Year | Frequency |
1940 | 40 |
1941 | 207 |
1942 | 307 |
1943 | 293 |
1944 | 274 |
1945 | 287 |
1946 | 194 |
1947 | 127 |
1948 | 143 |
1949 | 141 |
1950 | 131 |
1951 | 124 |
1952 | 26 |
1953 | 162 |
1954 | 243 |
1955 | 186 |
1956 | 202 |
1957 | 237 |
1958 | 159 |
1959 | 156 |
1960 | 169 |
1961 | 130 |
1962 | 87 |
1963 | 52 |
1964 | 23 |
1965 | 74 |
1966 | 24 |
The graph makes it clearer to see that “Cruiskeen Lawn” came to a gradual end from 1956-1966, when publication rates steadily decreased with each year.
All 4,198 entries are numbered and provide the date, language, and page number of each column. On instances in which two languages are listed, the language listed first is the predominant one. Oftentimes, O’Nolan wrote a single section of an article, or even just a few lines, in another language. These instances are noted in the catalogue only when a second language is used for more than a handful of words. Also noted are the number of sections that constitute each article. Because “Cruiskeen Lawn” changed over its 26 years in the Irish Times, there are few ways to describe it consistently over time. Article or heading titles, for instance, appear, change, and then disappear, making it impossible to use these as consistent descriptors. This catalogue notes how many sections comprise each article as a signal of the column’s general structure and possible shifts in subject matter. Sections are not indicative of article length; an article of six sections is more likely to have six short sections and be about the same length as an article of three sections. Below, two images of articles from 1945 and 1961 show changes in the column’s layout, especially regarding title, attribution, and section divisions.
(L) Myles na gCopaleen, “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 24 December 1945, p. 4
(R) Myles na Gopaleen, “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 16 January 1961, p. 8.
The 1945 example is of the earlier “Cruiskeen Lawn” style, where the article itself is titled “Cruiskeen Lawn” and each individual section has its own subtitle. The example from 1961 shows how this changed to include different daily titles with the column name featured within a box in the article body. The sections in these later columns are divided by three asterisks.
Also noted is O’Nolan’s inclusion of an image. Early “Cruiskeen Lawn” often featured photographs or drawings, especially of Myles na gCopaleen’s “inventions,” or to accompany his “home hints.” Later, symbols and pictographs occasionally arise within the column. For the purposes of this catalogue, all of these images have been counted equally and noted. They represent a break from the normal, expected typography of a newspaper article and communicate in similar ways as the ad images that border the newspaper page. Text is counted as an image only if O’Nolan includes a picture of text that originally appeared in another column or paper.
In 1966, during the last months of O’Nolan’s life, the Irish Times reprinted nine articles when the author was unable to submit new ones. These articles are marked here with a superscript “R”—for reprint—next to the date. These entries are included in this catalogue because their publication is part of the story of the column’s conclusion. That “Cruiskeen Lawn” was still popular enough in 1966 to warrant republication over termination is key to our understanding of its reception, popularity, and regularity the Irish Times.
Many thanks for using this resource. Please feel free to contact me regarding questions, comments, or project ideas.
With thanks,
Catherine Ahearn, PhD
Knowledge Futures Group