IFI Irish Film Archive
An advertisement for Valley Ice Cream, encouraging people to get their next ice cream pop from ‘the big red fridge’. Featuring all the favourites, including Choc Ice. Valley Ice Cream was based in Thurles, Co Tipperary, and closed in 1997.
Scenes of Polling stations at the Irish general election are shown in this newsreel, where the main issue being voted on was whether the country should remain as a Free State or become a full Republic – the goal of de Valera’s Fianna Fáil party. Crowds of people gather on Marlborough Street and Free state soldiers stand guard at the exterior of a polling station. Inside, men are seen distributing ballots as the count progresses. General Richard Mulcahy, Minister for Defence is returned. At Stephen’s Green Mrs Charlotte Despard, noted republican and suffragette stands and speaks to camera. Ms Despard was sister of former Viceroy Lord French and president of the Women’s Freedom League. Final intertitle introduces young Vivian (sic properly Vivion) de Valera, son of Eamon. Richard Mulcahy was an army general and commander-in-chief for the Irish Republican Army. He later served in the cabinets of W. T. Cosgrave and John A. Costello. He fought in the 1916 Easter Rising, served as Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence and became commander of the pro-treaty forces in the Irish Civil War after the death of Michael Collins. The uniform of General Mulcahy’s from 1922 is currently held by the National Museum of Ireland.
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. Snakes and Ladders (1997), her debut feature, was one of the first Irish films directed by a woman about contemporary women’s lives, and she continued to position women squarely on screen with her ground-breaking documentary series, Hoodwinked: Irish Women Since the 1920s. Her interest in other artists is evident in her documentary profiles of Leo O’Kelly, Donal O’Kelly and Liu Xiabo. She has recently explored new modes of storytelling in her formally exciting short films Strangers to Kindness (2015) and Confinement (2019). 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. Trish approached the IFI Archive Player looking to discover some hidden gems showing an alternative Irish character. Her choices can be broken down into three eras: early representations of Ireland on film (1910s – 1920s); changing culture in Ireland (1950s – 1970s); and contemporary Irish filmmaking (1980s – 2000s). The wide-ranging selection, in her own words ‘not so much a tip of an iceberg, as a scattering within the iceberg,’ is free to watch on the IFI Archive Player anywhere in the world.
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.
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.
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.