IFI Irish Film Archive
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.
In 1985, two teenagers break into a cinema at night to watch the comical story of a woman waiting impatiently for her boyfriend to return home from the pub. The man’s actions cause utter chaos upon his return home to their apartment. Despite his inebriation he decides to climb, half-naked, out of bed and under the sink to fix a dripping tap. A curious cat surprises him with its attentions causing him to accidentally knock himself out. His long-suffering girlfriend calls an ambulance and, relieved to hear he’ll be alright in the morning, allows herself a little laugh as he is carried off still drunk, still naked, for a night in hospital. This idiosyncratic short film provided a vehicle for the fledgling directorial talents of Trish McAdam, and for a large and impressive cast of young actors including Jack Lynch, Pom Boyd, Mannix Flynn, and a young Aidan Gillen (as Aidan Murphy). This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.
This short documentary depicts the lives of the inhabitants of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway in 1924. The opening title notes: ‘Remote from civilisation, unique in custom, these hardy Arran (sic) islanders eke out an existence from barren and rock-bound soil’. 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; rowing 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. 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. 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. Dear Daughter was the first televised exposure of the horrific abuse of hundreds of children in Ireland’s industrial schools. Christine Buckley bravely recounts the extent of the atrocities she experienced as a child in Dublin’s Goldenbridge orphanage in this drama-documentary. Born in Dublin, she was the daughter of a married Irish woman and a Nigerian medical student. At the age of three weeks old she was given up to be fostered. Dear Daughter delves into her traumatic childhood at the orphanage and her persistent determination to find her parents. Dear Daughter was one of several television documentaries (including Lentin’s Stolen Lives (1999) and Mary Rafferty’s States of Fear (1999)) which heightened public awareness of institutional abuse, and lead to the commissioning of the Murphy and Ryan reports, which investigated the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin leading to a full State apology to victims of clerical child abuse by then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Dear Daughter was awarded the Creative Excellence Award at the US International Film and TV Festival 1996 and was nominated for Social and Political Documentary, Banff Television Festival, 1996. With kind permission of Dr. Ronit Lentin.
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.
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. November 1961 and students from Trinity College marched the main streets of Dublin in protest at nuclear bomb testing. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, CND, was established in the UK in 1958 in the wake of widespread fear of conflict and the effects of nuclear testing. CND quickly grew with branches in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. This newsreel recorded Irish student protesters as they marched in Dublin from St. Stephens Green to the Ambassador Theatre on O’Connell Street. Their placards demanded 'Ban the Bomb' and called for world peace. Produced by Gael Linn, Amharc Éireann (A View of Ireland) is Ireland’s longest-running indigenous newsreel series. It was distributed to cinemas throughout the country to promote the Irish language. The first 36 issues were produced as single-topic films which were released monthly, followed in 1959 by weekly, multi-story newsreels featuring a broad range of topics, from hard news stories to lighter magazine-style items. Between 1956 and 1964, 267 editions of the newsreel were produced for cinema exhibition. With kind permission of Gael Linn.