Organised Manhood

Abstract

In September 1924, Guth an Gharda [The Policeman’s Voice], a short-lived newspaper published by and for the members of the Irish Free State’s nascent police force, featured a caricature entitled ‘Jew Regard for the Law’ (See Fig. 3.1). Punning on Irish people’s similar pronunciations of ‘d-u-e’ and ‘j-e-w’, what might at first appear mere antisemitic doggerel had some deeper veins of nationalist meaning. This cartoon ‘Jew’ embodied a number of the somatic anxieties that were at the very core of the Irish nationalist project. This chapter is a review of the athletic and militarised strategies used to craft a more ideal image of resurgent Irish manhood that would counter those anxieties. This chapter seeks to show how such anxieties predated the ‘revolution’ of the 1910s and also lasted well into the 1920s.