“…a long journey through the valley of the shadow…”: A comparison of Irish and British news discourse on the Irish Civil War

This paper brings a comparative perspective to the analysis of news discourse about the Irish Civil War (1922-1923). The study was based on two small corpora including news reports and editorials from the Irish Free State and the United Kingdom. The research was aimed at identifying patterns in terms of the discourse strategies through which the news outlets under analysis reported and commented on the War as well as the two sides that fought it, and they lent critical insights on the background to the conflict. The data showed a high degree of similarity between pro-Treaty Irish and British sources, for instance in terms of the representation of the Provisional Government as the only legitimate authority in the War. Findings also suggest that journalists from the two sides of the Irish sea recurrently drew on Irish history as a background to the conflict. This, however, betrayed signs of firm political stances and strongly held beliefs one would struggle to reconcile: a palpable sense of superiority from a time-honoured tradition of statesmanship on the British side as opposed to ideals of nationhood inherited from earlier revolutionary fervour, putatively embodied by the Free State authorities and promoted by their propaganda.