Bell, The

1940-1954; monthly literary and cultural journal founded by Seán O’Faoláinm ed. up to 1946; Peadar O’Donnell, business manager and later ed., 1946-54; Geoffrey Taylor first poetry ed. (with Louis MacNeice taking over, 1946-47); contribs. incl. Brendan Behan, Austin Clarke, Patrick Kavanagh, Flann O’Brien, Frank O’Connor, Liam O’Flaherty, and Mary Lavin; W. R. Rodgers, John Hewitt; Michael McLaverty, et al.; asst. eds. incl. Hubert Butler and Anthony Cronin; under its founding editor and afte, the journal opposed monlithic versions of Irishness and challenged illiberal temperament and measures in Ireland such as censorship legislation of 1929. There are six monthly issues to each volume, volumes beginning in October and April.

Bibl., Rudi Holzapfel, ‘Index of Contributors’ (1970); see also Donal McCartney, ‘Seán O’Faoláin: A Nationalist Right Enough’, in Irish University Review [“Seán O’ Faoláin Special Issue”] (1976), Seán MacMahon, ed., The Best From ‘The Bell’ (1978), and Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922-1979 (1981).

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry 1991), Vol. 3, pp.91-92: only counterweight to the ideological monolith of independent Ireland; [extracts 101-07], Fnd-ed. Sean O’Faoláin, 1940-46, 127; Geoffrey Taylor (1900-1956), one-time literary editor of, 247n; Behan publishes documentary piece about imprisonment in [Anthony Cronin], 524; Cronin [assistant] editing The Bell, 529; with the publication of The Bell in Oct 1940, the sounding of the Celtic note became increasingly discordant, [Gibbons ed.], 562; cosmpolitan and international influence of [Gibbons, ed.] 566, [extracts from editorial, ‘The Gaelic Cult’, vol 9, no. 3, Dec. 1944, FDA3 569-73]; James Plunkett visited USSR through an invitation of The Bell, in 1955 [bio-note & QRY], 1133.

There is a set of The Bell annotated by Peadar O’Donnell in the Letterkenny Public Library (information supplied by Kelly-Anne Matthews, PhD Diss. Research, UU 2007).

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