IFI Irish Film Archive

Looking On

Year2009 Duration30m 00s

Summer, Dublin, 1982: A collective of community activists resist the housing and urban redevelopment of the north inner-city. This largely observational documentary charts the Looking On Festival through theatre, musical performances and off-the-cuff interviews with Peter Sheridan, a young Tony Gregory, Pat Kenny and Thom ‘The Diceman’ McGinty. The gatekeepers of the community are introduced, resisting the might of the encroaching developers: families of street traders fight market closures; activist Mick Rafferty voices concern about Dublin Corporation; and Christy Flood, the last occupant of the Gardiner Street tenements, fights to retain his homestead. Locals look on as the tenements are demolished and the city transforms around them. Sé Merry Doyle offers a vital study over a definitive period in Dublin’s history, asking us to question the function of a city and the vital role of communities. Looking On foregrounds these issues as do Alive Alive O – A Requiem for Dublin and Essie’s Last Stand.

It’s Dublin, 1999, and 76 year old Essie Keeling, Georgie her dog and her neighbour Karl Byrne are fighting eviction by property developers and homelessness. This timely, inspiring story of determination and resistance offers a crucial lens through which to view Dublin’s current housing crisis. Despite her age and ill health, the lovable Essie is a force to be reckoned with. She refuses an offer of one thousand pounds when asked to make way for the demolition and redevelopment of her home into luxury apartments. Gathering a mass of supporters, including Richard Boyd Barrett and Nell McCafferty, Essie and Karl make a stand that captures the public’s imagination and wins the heart of the audience. Don’t miss our exclusive clip below, where Loopline revisit Essie one year later. Director Liam McGrath has documented Irish society for over twenty years with a regular focus on Traveller Culture. He is known for the feature documentary Southpaw: The Francis Barrett Story (1998) and was winner of the 2015 Best Director Television IFTA for Dolores Keane: A Storm in the Heart.

3m 17s

The Loopline Collection Featurette

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.

30m 00s

Hugh Leonard - Imprint: Writer in Profile

Hugh Leonard was a prolific Irish dramatist, television writer and essayist. In this episode, Leonard takes us through his childhood in Dalkey, Co. Dublin, writing his early plays and his influences from Lennox Robinson and Sean O’Casey, to ‘the greatest’ Samuel Beckett. He offers an in-depth look at his creative process, how ideas arise and whether his penchant for comedy has stopped him from being considered a serious writer. The differences between writing for theatre and film are explored in relation to the film adaptation of Da and writing the screenplay for Insurrection, RTÉ’s ground-breaking series about 1916. 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.

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.

26m 00s

Looking After Yourself - A Good Age: Episode 3

Looking After Yourself explores how ageism can create low self-esteem in senior citizens and can compromise the capacity for a full and healthy life. This episode features a range of housing schemes, retirement homes, medical and recreational facilities. Colourful characters with contrasting attitudes and approaches to growing old are also introduced. Residents of Claremont Court, Dublin, recall visiting President Mary Robinson at Áras an Uachtaráin, while Brigid Donaghue discusses the loneliness of missing her deceased husband. Meanwhile students at Presentation College, Cork, reach out to senior citizens as part of the S.H.A.R.E programme; and independent Agnes Brooder talks about working at Shannon Airport and keeping her accommodation there in retirement. A Good Age is a six-part television series, directed by Sé Merry Doyle, tackling head-on the myths and misconceptions that result in ageism. A forthright approach was taken throughout as the joys and realities of getting older are examined.

15m 00s

Bye Bye Now

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.