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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15m 00s
The Drip
In 1985, two teenagers break into a cinema at night to watch the comical story of a woman waiting impatiently for her boyfriend to return home from the pub. The man’s actions cause utter chaos upon his return home to their apartment. Despite his inebriation he decides to climb, half-naked, out of bed and under the sink to fix a dripping tap. A curious cat surprises him with its attentions causing him to accidentally knock himself out. His long-suffering girlfriend calls an ambulance and, relieved to hear he’ll be alright in the morning, allows herself a little laugh as he is carried off still drunk, still naked, for a night in hospital. This idiosyncratic short film provided a vehicle for the fledgling directorial talents of Trish McAdam, and for a large and impressive cast of young actors including Jack Lynch, Pom Boyd, Mannix Flynn, and a young Aidan Gillen (as Aidan Murphy). This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.
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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.
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5m 18s
Terence MacSwiney Laid to Rest
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.
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30m 00s
Gore Vidal - Imprint: Writers in Profile
This episode of Writers in Profile features the novelist, playwright, screenwriter and essayist, Gore Vidal. We gain a glimpse of Vidal’s early childhood, the controversy around his novel The City and the Pillar, and his experience writing scripts for films such as Ben Hur (1959). A desire to dissect the roots of American society has spurred him to coax readers to revise their sense of reality. Vidal believes this work can be divided into two kinds of novel – the first is built from reflections of history and the others are ‘fictive inventions’. The Big Bang theory and reincarnation are explored, and Vidal expresses how ‘very lucky’ he has been in life and 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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30m 00s
Paul Durcan - Imprint: Writer in Profile
This episode with Paul Durcan begins with his interest in sport in his early childhood. He explains that he started writing poetry at 14 years old in the hope of attracting interest from girls. Durcan outlines his powerful relationship and mentorship with Michael Hartnett and how his influence led him to the work of James Joyce and Ulysses in particular. Theo Dorgan quizzes him on his status as a well-known public and important cultural figure. Durcan skates around the notion of celebrity and speaks about the importance of addressing public matters directly through poetry. He also discusses the writing process – the assembling and re-assembling of phrases in the middle of the night and the way a poem ‘announces itself’. 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.