Britain was often given stick for having the strictest film censorship in the Western World, but Ireland was pretty slapdash with their censor cutting scissors too. Tons of movies were heavily cut for cinema release or video release or else the film classification age was put ridiculously high. To see unexpurgated or banned films, one had to be a member of a private cinema club. The tide turned in the mid 1990s with the increased liberalisation of Irish society. Nowadays, there is little in the way of film classification and films are rarely cut. In the run up to St Patrick's day, it is time to take a nostalgic look back to the dark old days of Irish film censorship and the films that got the censors in a twist.
10. Meet the Feebles (1989)
The Lord of the Rings future director Peter Jackson had a long hard slog cutting his teeth on gore and unwholesome fare in his native New Zealand before he hit the big time in Hollywood. Meet the Feebles concerns the lives and activities of a bunch of Puppets who star in their own variety hour. But the Muppets they ain't. These sick puppies have problems with infidelity, drug addiction, kinky sex, sexually transmitted diseases, a porn ring run in the theatre basement. There is a lot of emphasis on bodily fluids in the film. Still banned as of 2009, the Irish Censors probably looked at the film and thought "The nation of Ireland could be doing more constructive things than watching this". And they were probably right.