IFI Irish Film Archive

Boy Wanted

Duration2m 53s

Two boys wander aimlessly through the streets of Dublin (heading down South King Street towards the old Mercer’s Hospital) when they see a sign outside Traynor’s Grocers shop saying, ‘Boy Wanted’. The bigger boy barges in and gets the job as a bicycle messenger. He heads off with a box of groceries to the leafy neighbourhood of Grosvenor Square, Rathmines, where he finds an empty house and a tantalisingly unlocked window! This is the only known surviving film made by the Junior Film Society, a branch of the Irish Film Society (est 1936). The IFS was primarily engaged in exhibiting classic and international cinema but also coordinated film production projects for adults and children. Boy Wanted is a short, silent story told with great skill and economy, capturing a crisp black and white snapshot of 1940s Dublin city and suburbs. The camerawork and editing may have been inspired by classics of European silent cinema.

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.

9m 04s

Up the Canal

This short film explores how the Grand Canal in Dublin has changed over the years. The voiceover provided by Irish novelist, short story writer and humourist John D. Sheridan, notes how methods of transport have changed and how fewer boats and barges now use the waterway. The aural memories are illustrated by poetic footage of the canal in the 1960s. The director, Margaret Currivan, won first prize for Up the Canal in the 'Film Shows Cup’ at the 1961 Dublin Amateur Cine Society competition (a competition predominantly entered by male filmmakers at the time). Margaret Currivan (b. 1923) was an avid amateur filmmaker, most prolific from 1954 to 1966. Currivan had a keen interest in photography and co-owned Currivan's Photographic Services in Dublin with her husband, Patrick Joseph (PJ). The shop processed and sold film, projectors, cameras and equipment and the filmmaker would, therefore, have had access to equipment, supplies and quick processing. Her films chronicle the story of her family, PJ and children Helen, Dan, and Paddy, engaged in key events including birthdays, Christmases and holidays. Currivan sometimes appears in her films, alluding to partial recording made by PJ. However, the shots are few and authorship is retained by Currivan who is noted to have also meticulously edited her films using a manual reel-to-reel device and splicer.

14m 00s

Missing Green

A solitary woman walks through the eerie night-time landscape of Dublin’s Cork Street, a street once quiet and residential, now a four-laned artery for city traffic.  Cork Street, as described by the narrators Councillor John Gallagher, architect Gerry Cahill, journalist Frank McDonald and sociologist Aileen O’Gorman, used to be a much better place to live than it is today.  Gone are the days when people could easily cross the road to visit neighbours or children could safely play on the street. Urban planners carved out this four-laned artery to connect the city with its outlying suburbs. Furthermore, a decision to fence off open spaces in an attempt to prevent  anti-social behaviour , succeeded only in  promoting social isolation for the residents who still call Cork Street home.  The isolation is embodied in the character of a young woman (actor Niamh Algar, nominated for a BAFTA for 2019’s Calm with Horses) who walks through the deserted  urban landscape as memories are narrated which no longer match the present-day surroundings. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.

35s

President of Éire

Large crowds gather on the streets of Dublin as Ireland’s first President, Dr. Douglas Hyde, is installed. This newsreel from 1938 depicts the military procession that leads Douglas Hyde past the Grand Central Cinema and the GPO on O’Connell Street, Dublin to the Phoenix Park where he is to be installed as President of Ireland. When he arrives at Áras an Uachtaráin he is greeted by Eamon de Valera, Prime Minister, and Seán T O’Kelly, Tánaiste who would succeed Hyde as President in 1945. Áras an Uachtaráin was built in 1751 in Phoenix Park, Dublin. It had been acquired for use by the Viceroys who oversaw British rule in Ireland until 1922 but became the President of Ireland’s official home in 1938. This film is part of The Irish Independence Film Collection – The Early Irish Free State that explores facets of Irish society after the War of Independence and up to the birth of the Irish Republic.

7m 00s

Fall into Half-Angel

A documentary exploring the romantic and artistic relationship between two trapeze artists. Trapeze artists Ken Fanning and Tina Segner perform a series of breath-taking feats in the air as they reflect on their relationship and the profound physical and emotional trust that their partnership demands. This is not your traditional love story: boy meets girl; they fall in love with each other and with the trapeze; girl meets somebody else; trust is undermined. Following the break-up and an accidental fall, trust and emotions are tested. But the pair continue working closely together perfecting their act. Róisín Loughrey’s DLCAD graduate film delicately interweaves the frank reflections of the artists with Kate McCullough’s black and white cinematography (see more of McCullough’s work in Home). Fall into Half Angel won many awards and was screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.

30m 47s

Statistic - Trish McAdam Filmmaker Playlist

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. ‘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.