The most christian state in the world: Irish nationalism newspapers and the Estado Novo, 1932-1945

• Autor(a) principal: Mercereau,Jean Noël Fernand
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0807-89672013000200012
• topic: António de Oliveira Salazar; Eamon de Valera; Irish newspapers; Irish nationalism; Estado Novo

Throughout the first years of Salazar’s Estado Novo regime, Portugal was the object of particular attention in Ireland. Reflecting this general tendency, the pro-treaty nationalist newspaper The Irish Independent and its republican rival The Irish Press both painted a mostly positive picture of Portugal’s dictator. In their eyes, the Portuguese leader’s chief merit was, besides having contributed to Portugal’s financial recovery, to provide “a striking example of what God demanded”, as the Irish Independent then put it. This article analyzes the perspective on the Portuguese dictator presented by these two Irish newspapers and the arguments on which they relied to express their support for his dictatorial regime. Based on an analysis of contents of the most significant articles devoted to Salazar and the Estado Novo over the period, its main conclusion is that both newspapers, while disagreeing on most issues on the Irish scene, basically shared the same positions towards Salazar’s regime, but came to opposite conclusions as far as the Irish situation at the time is concerned.