“The mask is off at last!” : Propaganda discourse in the Irish Civil War

Propaganda has generated sustained scholarly interest over the past few decades. While, however, historical research and argumentation studies on propaganda tend to fall short of in-depth examinations of discourse against the backdrop of a sound data base, this paper focuses on the discourse of propaganda through a comparative study of two well-known propaganda sheets from the Irish Civil War (1922-1923). Based on the ICW_Corpus designed for the project, the main discourse strategies are identified through which the (respective) enemy and their actions were represented, their moral credibility was questioned and, vice-versa, how the actions of the respective in-group were both justified and/or openly advocated as the appropriate ones for the country. Findings show that Poblacht na hÉireann and The Free State are closely comparable in using discourse to get the Irish people to endorse the aims and policies of a specific group or faction, by ensuring compliance with the actions of the group itself.