IFI Irish Film Archive
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.
‘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. This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.
‘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.
In this 1920s newsreel, an Irish co-operative digs, stacks and gathers turf. It is an activity involving the whole community - even the local priest is involved in overseeing the sacks of turf loaded onto a barge before being transported by canal. The crew work tirelessly to load a barge. ‘Rathangan’ is inscribed on the side of the barge and a man waves an ‘Up Kildare’ flag in shot. The turf is possibly extracted from the Bog of Allen – a large, raised bogland stretching over 5 counties in Ireland. In the 19th and early 20th century, non-agriculturally viable bogland was Ireland’s primary indigenous fuel resource. It is estimated that 6 million tonnes of sod turf was produced in 1921. In Ireland today a focus has shifted to a more environment-friendly energy production and there has been an attempt to restore Irish boglands. 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.
This newsreel shows the final journey for Terence Mac Swiney, who died in Brixton, England on October 25th 1920. His body arrives in Cork at Customs House Quay on October 31st (it was diverted from Dublin to avoid demonstrations). The coffin of Terence McSwiney arrives on the tugboat Mary Tavy into Cork's Custom House Quay. A procession of mourners fill Patrick Street as hordes of people turn up to show their respects. His brother Sean MacSwiney is seen walking alongside the coffin along with his other brother Peter, who is acting as pallbearer. His coffin is carried into the Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne and he is buried at St Finbarr’s Cemetery. Terence James MacSwiney was an Irish playwright, author and politician. He was elected as Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence in 1920. He was arrested by the British on charges of sedition and imprisoned in Brixton Prison in England. His death there in October 1920 after 74 days on hunger strike brought him and the Irish struggle to international attention.
“Our Cameraman was there”. Michael Collins endorses the Anglo-Irish Treaty to an audience gathered at the Grand Parade in Cork City, where he receives an enthusiastic reception. It’s not too long before the crowd is seen surging backwards as several men begin to fire their guns in the crowd. This is the same footage that’s featured in “The Great Cork Treaty” newsreel. Michael Collins described The Treaty as “the freedom to achieve freedom”. In practice, The Treaty offered most of the symbols and powers of independence. These included a functioning, if disputed, parliamentary democracy with its own executive, judiciary and a written constitution which could be changed by the Oireachtas. Although a Republic was not an option at the time, The Treaty still afforded Ireland more internal independence than it had possessed in over 400 years, and far exceeded the most optimistic goals of the Home Rule movement.