IFI Irish Film Archive
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14m 31s
Come Back to Erin - 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. 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.
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30m 00s
John Montague - Imprint: Writer in Profile
John Montague was an Irish poet who was born in Brooklyn, New York, but grew up in Tyrone, Ireland. At the time this programme was made, Montague was Ireland Professor of Poetry at Trinity College, Dublin. In this generous interview, Montague reflects on studying in college where he discovered that ‘there were such things called poets’; living in France during World War II; encountering beat poetry in America; and returning to Cork in the early 1970s. Montague also examines his position as a poet and the 'melancholy' strain in his work. 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.
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9m 35s
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.
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12m 42s
Roll 16 - Anne's third birthday, et al.
This silent amateur film captures family moments over several occasions, from airport greetings to birthday celebrations. Children and adults alike enjoy playing by a pond in a lush garden and a day out to Glendalough, County Wicklow, where everyone enjoys a picnic. The filmmaker, Beres Laidlaw, regularly documented her four daughters in home movies and travelogues. Beres Laidlaw (b. 1931) was a native of County Meath. In 1953, she married Thomas K. Laidlaw. Somerton House, their family home, and Georgian mansion with 130-acre estate in Castleknock, County Dublin, forms the backdrop to several of her films. The family's involvement in equestrian events and everyday life is depicted alongside overseas trips to Malaysia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Switzerland. The family sold Somerton House in the 1980s and Laidlaw retired to Balrath in County Meath. She died on 3rd December 2018.
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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.
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30m 00s
Thomas Kilroy - Imprint: Writer in Profile
Irish playwright Thomas Kilroy was born in Limerick and through a career spanning fifty years, he has resisted fixed categories and boundaries in both his stagecraft and themes of his plays. This episode begins with a discussion about what interviewer Theo Dorgan refers to as a ‘double life’ – Kilroy’s role as a playwright and a Professor of English. This leads the conversation on to the theatre scene in Ireland in the 1960s, the start of a new generation of playwrights at the Abbey Theatre, and his experience working with Stephen Rea. Kilroy was involved with the Field Day Theatre Company but later left as he believed it should have been more politically focused. 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.