IFI Irish Film Archive
Do You Know
Duration41s
A know-it-all brags about his knowledge of Guinness to a less than enthused group in a pub.
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Cathal Black In Focus - 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. As her final pick for her Filmmaker Playlist, Trish McAdam wanted to highlight the virtual exhibition on the IFI Archive Player of a range of supplementary material within the Paper Collection relating to Cathal Black’s work and career. This material encompasses his role as director, producer and activist. It includes a large number of film stills, posters, programme notes, production notes and letters, all of which are a valuable source of information to students, researchers and anyone interested in learning more about his work. Please go to https://ifiarchiveplayer.ie/cathal-black/ to view the virtual exhibition.
Housing Discrimination - 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. Shot in 1953, this film highlighted housing discrimination practiced by the unionist-controlled council in the town of Fintona in County Tyrone. It outlines the inequalities faced by the poorer, and usually nationalist, inhabitants, and details how new council houses are being given to unionist residents who are in less need of the houses than nationalists. It argues that the discrimination is motivated by the desire to maintain a majority of unionist voters in certain constituencies. Housing Discrimination was produced by the Information Division of the Irish Department of External Affairs (now the Department of Foreign Affairs) and was allegedly partly shot using a hidden camera. In 1954 it was distributed in Britain by the Anti-Partition League, which prompted the Northern Ireland provincial government to complain to the British government, asking it to lodge a complaint with the Irish government. The film is interesting for a number of reasons; its originator (effectively the Irish government), its subject matter (housing discrimination in Northern Ireland), its argument (discrimination represents a conspiracy against the people of Ireland by a ruling group acting in concert with the British government) and its language (virulently Irish nationalist and anti-British). With kind permission of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Take Me Swimming
‘The day I don’t know who you are, promise to take me swimming’ – a melancholic promise between a husband and wife as her Alzheimer’s disease progresses. When Thady (Barry Ward) returns to his parents’ home for a neighbour’s wake, he is shocked by his mother’s decline (Olwen Fouéré, also seen in The Wake). Gone is the eloquent artist of the television interviews, and here now is a woman who has lost her capacity to carry out the most mundane tasks and spends her days in a local care centre. When he finds the crumpled promise in the pocket of an old dressing gown, the rest of his visit is spent bitterly resenting his mother’s condition and his father’s stoic acceptance. It is only when his mother goes missing in the middle of the night that he begins to understand how their love transcends her condition. Director Claire Dix and writer Ailbhe Keogan have since collaborated on the feature film Sunlight. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.
Waves
Waves is a visually breathtaking film about the power of the sea. Capturing the Atlantic Ocean in various moods as it crashes against the Irish coasts, the film is a hymn to the relentless power and endless beauty of this elemental force of nature. With coastal scenes harking back to the majesty of Flaherty’s Man of Aran (1934), Carey offers a unique sea-centred depiction of the islands as his painterly cinematography offers mesmerising images of roiling seas, waves crashing against the Aran rocks, sunsets and a golden full moon. John Taylor, friend and colleague of Carey, had originally worked on Man of Aran and filmed some of the additional photography in Waves. This film is part of The Patrick Carey Collection.
Is it the Dawn?
Following truce talks with Lord Middleton between July 4th and 8th 1921, having previously refused to do any interviews, Éamon de Valera released this statement to the world exclusively through this Topical Budget Newsreel. This intertitle only newsreel is unusual as we see his quote from an extract of the poem “Celts and Saxons” by poet Thomas Davis. ‘Ireland is fighting solely for the right to live her own life in her own way. She loves equally all her children and she needs them all’. ‘Oh! it were a gallant deed to show before mankind, How every race and every creed might be by love combined ? Might be combined, yet not forget the fountains whence they rose. As, filled by many a rivulet, the stately Shannon flows’’
Wonderful Western Islanders - 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. 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.