IFI Irish Film Archive

Winning the Battle, Still Fighting The War

Year1997 Duration16m 20s

Filmed in the late 1990s (seven years prior to the demolition of the first Ballymun tower), this documentary features members of the Gardaí, health professionals, politicians and residents of Ballymun as they discuss the drugs epidemic in the area. They highlight the need for additional addiction treatment services and increased collaboration between community members and government authorities. Community initiatives, like Drug Watch, have been successful in reducing drug dealing and usage in the flats.

Women in Focus is a curated selection of films by five wildly independent female amateur filmmakers: Margaret Currivan; Agnes Heron; Flora Kerrigan; Beres Laidlaw; and Sister Maureen MacMahon. Women's creative work has been under-reported and under-recognised and can be challenging to catalogue due to a lack of recorded primary information. This is exacerbated when dealing with amateur or non-professional filmmaking, where the work of individual women filmmakers has been even more invisible. In 2021, the IFI Film Archive acknowledged a limitation in the IFI Film Archive research resources and put a request out to academic partners to assist in developing new tools that would highlight the work of female filmmakers within the collection. This resulted in a collaborative research project that developed new approaches to cataloguing the creative contribution of women filmmakers in local, regional, and national archives. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Irish Research Council, as part of the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities scheme, the project is a UK-Ireland collaboration between the University of East Anglia, Maynooth University, and the University of Sussex, with the IFI Irish Film Archive and East Anglian Film Archive as archive partners. The project has resulted in the creation of a cataloguing toolkit that helps archives with moving image collections to create clear, relevant, and easily accessible records about female filmmakers. The work presented here formed case studies for the toolkit and was digitised by the IFI Irish Film Archive.  A larger selection of films from the project will be made available on the IFI Archive Player in 2025.

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.

20m 00s

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.

5m 42s

Tommy Orr, Blacksmith - The Roy Spence Collection

This loving crafted short documentary follows the work of Tommy Orr of Killinchy, Co. Down, who has carried on the family tradition as a blacksmith for over 40 years. From the ringing of the anvil to the smoke billowing from the roadside forge, this film focuses on his work as a farrier and shows not only the unique skill that’s required but his genuine love and pride in his work. Roy Spence is an award-winning amateur filmmaker. For the past 50 years, Spence has been making and screening a series of remarkable and sometimes eccentric films in his cinema in Comber, Co. Down. The films span many genres from sci-fi to horror to folk-life documentaries shot between 1965 and 1986. His collection of over 40 films (13 documentaries/non-fiction and 29 fiction feature films) is held and preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive.

8m 42s

Crock of Gold - The Roy Spence Collection

When two children discover a herd of cows at the end of the rainbow they are disappointed as they were expecting to find gold. The film traces the journey of butter from cows grazing, to milking, to the final churning of milk into a crock of gold – packets of butter – much to the delight of the children. It is a simple delight, and moments like the creative sound mixing in the laboratory scene gives you a taste of Spence’s filmmaking talents. Roy Spence is an award-winning amateur filmmaker. For the past 50 years, Spence has been making and screening a series of remarkable and sometimes eccentric films in his cinema in Comber, Co. Down. The films span many genres from sci-fi to horror to folk-life documentaries shot between 1965 and 1986. His collection of over 40 films (13 documentaries/non-fiction and 29 fiction feature films) is held and preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive.

28m 25s

The Blacksmith - The Roy Spence Collection

In this Roy Spence film, created for the Ulster Folk Museum, Joe O’Neill shows a range of blacksmithing skills and techniques using tools and methods that have not changed in centuries. These include heat welding, scarfing, scrolling, curling and bending. All completed in a traditional simple forge. The original version of the film included an audio track explaining the history, tools and techniques of a blacksmith, however even as a silent film, the powerful visuals of this timeless skill remains evident.Roy Spence is an award-winning amateur filmmaker. For the past 50 years, Spence has been making and screening a series of remarkable and sometimes eccentric films in his cinema in Comber, Co. Down. The films span many genres from sci-fi to horror to folk-life documentaries shot between 1965 and 1986. His collection of over 40 films (13 documentaries/non-fiction and 29 fiction feature films) is held and preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive.