IFI Irish Film Archive
Loopline Films is an independent production company established in 1992 by award-winning filmmaker Sé Merry Doyle. Since its foundation, Loopline has been at the heart of Irish independent broadcasting creating a wealth of important and diverse material on topics such as folklife, ethnology, architecture, art, literature and inner city life. The subjects explored by Loopline were chosen by Merry Doyle for their cultural and social importance. This first tranche of the Loopline Collection covers key areas of Irish history and arts, and contains a unique wealth of stunning images revealing everyday Irish society in urban settings. The focus of the filmmaker is on national identity in a changing world and Sé Merry Doyle set up Loopline Film with the specific intention of making creative documentaries that would endure and stand the test of time. The breadth of the collection is evident in the diversity of its content: The Folklife footage captures the last living moments of many traditional rural ways of life before mass production and consumerism led to their demise. The material covers traditional farming methods, boatbuilding, weaving, fishing, thatching, wheelwright, and spiritual customs. The collection contains a large quantity of urban material that chronicles the changing landscape of Dublin, its buildings and its citizen’s ways of life. The films include such historically resonant images as the clearance of slums, the closure of traditional markets, and tragic accounts of young teenagers dying from the heroin epidemic of the early 90’s. Portraits of artists, architects, writers and poets are also a cornerstone of the collection with riveting interviews with the very best artistic talent in the country. Patrick Kavanagh, John Montague, Hugh Leonard, James Gandon, Jennifer Johnston, Doris Lessing, John Henry Foley, Eavan Boland, Brendan Kennelly and Joseph O’Connor are but a fraction of those featured.
The late Leland Bardwell discusses her early childhood spent in India with her Irish parents. The family returned to Ireland when she was 2 years old and it was here that she would later carve a career as a novelist and poet. Bardwell outlines her trajectory from first publication for Arena Magazine in the ‘60s, encounters with her peers Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O’Brien, to publishing Girl on a Bicycle in 1977. Bardwell also expresses her interest in marginalized sections of society and the suppression of young women in Ireland. Imprint, a literature review programme, and its sister show Imprint: Writer in Profile screened on RTÉ1 for three seasons. Both were presented by Irish poet, writer and lecturer Theo Dorgan. Over the course of the Writer in Profile series Dorgan conducted extended, in-depth interviews with a wide range of Irish and international writers including Colm Tóibín, Bernard MacLaverty, Jennifer Johnston, Joseph O’Connor, Michael Longley, Doris Lessing, John Montague, Eavan Boland, Gore Vidal, Richard Ford and Margaret Atwood.
Our second IFI Filmmaker Playlist is curated by filmmaker and visual artist Trish McAdam. Since the production of her early shorts in the 1980s, Trish has created a vibrant and varied body of work, embracing a range of forms and subjects and retaining a singular, independent voice. We're delighted to welcome Trish to the Irish Film Institute to select her top picks from films preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive and presented on the IFI Archive Player. This short documentary depicts the lives of the inhabitants of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway in 1924. This short film, made about ten years before Flaherty’s epic Man of Aran, is probably the earliest surviving film of the islands. It presents a multi-faceted portrait of island life showing locals going about their daily routines: cattle are tied to a curragh and rowed out to a waiting steamship; islanders are photographed by visitors to the island; island men participate in the game of stone throwing (ag caitheamh cloch nirt). A breath-taking sequence shows 4 islandmen roped together and scaling a rugged cliff face. These men were known as cliffmen and may have been trying to catch birds or steal their eggs. While elders are busy battling the elements and rural life, some children express delight at the visiting camera. Aran historian Dr. Deirdre Ni Chonghaile has identified sequences on all three of the Aran Islands Inis Meáin, Inis Oírr and Inis Mór.
Our second IFI Filmmaker Playlist is curated by filmmaker and visual artist Trish McAdam. Since the production of her early shorts in the 1980s, Trish has created a vibrant and varied body of work, embracing a range of forms and subjects and retaining a singular, independent voice. We're delighted to welcome Trish to the Irish Film Institute to select her top picks from films preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive and presented on the IFI Archive Player. Only one reel of this three-reel film has survived the ravages of time and so the tale is incomplete – but worth watching nonetheless. In this transatlantic tale, feisty young Peggy O’Malley (Gene Gauntier) refuses her father's orders to marry Jerry, the village blacksmith and runs away to New York City via steam-liner. Upon landing in New York she gets a job working as a parlour maid in the home of wealthy Mrs Mortimer. The film includes striking documentary-like elements in scenes set in Ireland – at the cattle market in Killarney and scenes of the emigrant ship leaving Queenstown (now Cobh) for America. This is all that survives of the film. Contemporaneous reviews fill in the remaining story : It’s not long before Peggy falls into a bad crowd and soon finds herself arrested for a crime she didn’t commit. With the news of Peggy’s arrest having made its way back home, will her blacksmith in shining armour come to save her from her wrongful imprisonment and take her back to Ireland? A single reel of this 3 reel film was discovered in the Museum of Modern Art following research by IFI in preparation for a major retrospective of Irish cinema in MOMA in 2011.
Residents of rural Ireland reminisce on the joys and sorrows of phone boxes as they become obsolete in the modern world. When phone boxes were first introduced in Irish villages in the 1920s, there was stern competition between local businesses to have one installed outside their property. The phone box would assume a monumental role in many people’s lives allowing them to stay connected with loved ones and receive all sorts of important news. In Mayo, a couple celebrating their 50th anniversary credit the box for helping to keep their long-distance romance alive. In Donegal, a man laughingly recalls how two women became trapped inside one while trying to wait out a bad storm. A young man nervously calls a maternity hospital for news of his young wife. Although many of those interviewed admitted they do not use the service anymore, the phone box is a fondly remembered feature of Irish village life. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.
‘Who needs a pregnant waitress?’ is just one of the questions that fills Ellie Connolly’s mind when she discovers she is pregnant in 1980s Ireland. Statistic was made by film student Alison Kelly in 1983, the year which saw the passing of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution Act (which effectively criminalised abortion in most circumstances). Ellie (Edel McCrann) is pregnant as “the result of a drunken screw between two people who hardly knew each other”. She broods in her flat and discusses her predicament with her good friend Anne – she must tell her boyfriend Paul but she knows ’In the end it’s inside me, not him’. She finds information in a magazine about abortion services in the UK and Anne accompanies her to the ferry – following the footsteps of the many women before her. Statistic is invaluable as a contemporaneous response to events in 1983 – the film includes newspaper headlines and filmed sequences of pro and anti-abortion marches and dramatizes the plight of a young woman dealing with a crisis pregnancy. It is also a vivid record of the sights and sounds of Dublin in the 1980s - not least in the colourful cameos from mime artist Raymond Keane and indie band The Cuba Dares. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.