Collection
The Guinness Film Society Film Group Collection
3 items
The Guinness Film Society Film Group was an amateur filmmaking group set up in February 1968, when Mike Lawlor, then Chairman of the Society, proposed its establishment to the Committee. The Guinness Film Society, in existence since the early 1950s, was one of a number of film societies that brought independent and auteur cinema to Irish audiences. At its next public screening, Lawlor addressed the audience and invited anyone interested in making films to join the Group. Core members of the Guinness Film Society Film Group included Guinness colleagues John Gleeson (editing and camera), Tony Corcoran (research and sound) and Mike Lawlor (producer), aswell as Ries Hoek (director of photography), a Dutch commercial artist with an interest in filmmaking and a 16mm Bolex camera. They completed four films in four years: Liffey Faces (1969), a charming film following the journey of a toy yacht down the length of the Liffey to Dublin Bay; Ciall Cheannaigh (1969), a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the first suburban shopping centre in Ireland; The Birth of the Emerald Star Line (1970), a promotional film about a new Guinness subsidiary offering cabin cruisers for hire on the River Shannon, and Emerald Shannon (1971), which follows a family on their cruise along the river.
In 2022, the IFI Irish Film Archive meticulously restored three of the group’s four films. This restoration programme has been supported by the Heritage Council and Dublin Port Company.
▶
15m 00s
This observational documentary, with a soundtrack by Donal Lunny, captures the hustle and bustle of Ireland’s first suburban shopping centre, Dunnes Stores, Cornelscourt.
While the first modern shopping centres emerged in the United States in the 1920s, it was the 1960s before they began to pop up in Europe. In Ireland they generally appeared in the suburbs, designed with vast car parks to accommodate shoppers with a newfound desire to travel by car.
Ciall Cheannaigh begins as early morning shoppers pull into the car park and ends as they drive away at dusk. In between, it captures the minutiae of food, fashion and family as mothers, fathers, babies, teenagers, smokers, and priests and their housekeepers wander through the aisles. Over a sprightly soundtrack, the film offers a fascinating picture of suburban life in late-1960s Dublin.
Ciall Cheannaigh won the 1970 Oireachtas competition, adjudicated by filmmakers Louis Marcus and Robert Monks.
▶
26m 00s
Filmed during the summer of 1968, Liffey Faces traces the journey of a small toy boat down the river Liffey. As it makes its way from Kippure to Poolbeg, we witness a host of water-based antics including the Liffey Descent (a canoe marathon race), rowing at Islandbridge, the Liffey Swim and the Ringsend Regatta.
▶
27m 00s
The Bakers, an English family, arrive in the west of Ireland for a delightful cruising holiday along the Shannon visiting Banagher, Clonmacnoise and Athlone. Emerald Shannon was sponsored by Emerald Star Line Ltd. (a company within the Guinness Group).