The controversial Stanley Kubrick film, A Clockwork Orange, has been passed for cinema release in Ireland - 26 years after it was rejected by the Irish film censor.
The film was viewed yesterday by the present Censor, Mr Sheamus Smith, who passed it without cuts and with an 18-certificate.
Warner Bros, the film's distributor, intends to release the film in Ireland next spring.
Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, the film features Malcolm McDowell as the leader of the violent Droogs gang, an amoral young man obsessed with Beethoven, sex and "ultra-violence", until he is imprisoned and subjected to aversion therapy.
A stylised and ritualistic film, its story was conceived in violence. The film's depiction of a woman attacked by the Droogs was based on a vicious assault on Burgess's first wife by four American soldiers.
Even though it opened in London in 1971, A Clockwork Orange was not submitted to the Irish film censor until two years later, by which time it was steeped in controversy.
The censor viewed the film on April 10th, 1973 and rejected it. Given the furore surrounding it by then, Warner Bros did not see any point in submitting it to the Film Appeals Board.
Under the law, banned films may be resubmitted to the censor's office after seven years, but by the time April 1980 had come round Kubrick had imposed his own ban on the film in Britain.
He had been concerned by newspaper stories and comments by lawyers that the film's violence had triggered copycat crimes. The Sun had campaigned to have the film banned.
Kubrick reported that he and his family had received several death threats.
Because Britain and Ireland are grouped together as one territory for film distribution purposes, Kubrick's self-imposed ban extended to Ireland.
The film has been widely seen in the rest of the world, attracting a cult following in Paris, where it played in repertory cinemas for more than 20 years, and in the US.
Stanley Kubrick died in March this year, shortly after completing the film Eyes Wide Shut.
In recent months Warner Bros engaged in talks with his family regarding A Clockwork Orange, and the family now has withdrawn the director's prohibition on screening the film in Britain and Ireland.