IFI Irish Film Archive

Yeats Country

Year1965 Duration17m 16s ProducerDepartment of Foreign AffairsDirectorPatrick Carey

Yeats Country is a lyrical film commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs to commemorate the centenary of the birth of William Butler Yeats. The first film made by cinematographer and director Patrick Carey in Ireland, this documentary celebrates the landscape of Yeats’s poetry through stunning photography and a voiceover rich in poetry and in biographical detail narrated by Tom St. John Barry. Evocative images of the west of Ireland illustrate the poet’s life including: Thoor Ballylee Castle where he lived; Coole Park, home of Lady Gregory where literary figures of the period socialised; Lissadell House; Knocknarea Mountain; the slopes of Ben Bulben; the waterfall at Glencar; and finally, Yeats’s grave at Drumcliffe. Yeats Country is part of The Oscar® Collection: A Selection of Irish Academy Award® Nominated Short Films. It was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short in 1965. With kind permission of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In Irish legend, Oisín, son of Celtic warrior Fionn Mac Cumhaill, was a warrior, a bard and a poet. This lyrical film opens with a quotation from Irish mythology where Oisín describes Irish birdsong as ‘the sweetest in the world’ and urges us to ‘stop and listen!’ What follows is a stunning, non-narrated depiction of Irish birds, animals and landscapes. Oisín was commissioned by the Department of Land of Ireland as a contribution to the European Conservation Year. Oisín is part of The Oscar® Collection: A Selection of Irish Academy Award® Nominated Short Films It was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short in 1971. This film is part of The Patrick Carey Collection.

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.

9m 04s

Up the Canal

This short film explores how the Grand Canal in Dublin has changed over the years. The voiceover provided by Irish novelist, short story writer and humourist John D. Sheridan, notes how methods of transport have changed and how fewer boats and barges now use the waterway. The aural memories are illustrated by poetic footage of the canal in the 1960s. The director, Margaret Currivan, won first prize for Up the Canal in the 'Film Shows Cup’ at the 1961 Dublin Amateur Cine Society competition (a competition predominantly entered by male filmmakers at the time). Margaret Currivan (b. 1923) was an avid amateur filmmaker, most prolific from 1954 to 1966. Currivan had a keen interest in photography and co-owned Currivan's Photographic Services in Dublin with her husband, Patrick Joseph (PJ). The shop processed and sold film, projectors, cameras and equipment and the filmmaker would, therefore, have had access to equipment, supplies and quick processing. Her films chronicle the story of her family, PJ and children Helen, Dan, and Paddy, engaged in key events including birthdays, Christmases and holidays. Currivan sometimes appears in her films, alluding to partial recording made by PJ. However, the shots are few and authorship is retained by Currivan who is noted to have also meticulously edited her films using a manual reel-to-reel device and splicer.

10m 00s

Late Afternoon

In this delicately rendered animation, Emily, an elderly woman with dementia, vividly relives her memories. Sitting comfortably in her armchair Emily (voiced by Fionnula Flanagan) takes a cup of tea and a biscuit when a simple mishap triggers a pleasant journey into the past. She swims through the memories of being a child on a beach, a young woman in a lover’s embrace and a young mother concerned for her little girl. Inspired by writer/director Louise Bagnall’s two grandmothers, this is a poignant celebration of ordinary lives. Late Afternoon is part of The Oscar® Collection: A Selection of Irish Academy Award® Nominated Short Films. It was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Animated Short Film in 2019. A complementary behind-the-scenes video of Late Afternoon is also available as part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women.

21m 00s

Reflections - Ireland

Reflections – Ireland is a stunning, non-narrated tourist film with accompanying music by Paddy Moloney and The Chieftains. Many of Paddy Carey films depict a scarcity of civilisation, an untouched landscape, but here he treats the viewer to the beauties of landscape interwoven with a vivid tapestry of human activity: anglers in a lively river; bird-watchers at work; sheep farmers; horse riders; seaweed gatherers. A nighttime sequence shows people gathering in an unidentified village for music in a cosy pub. This film is part of The Patrick Carey Collection.

25m 00s

Waves

Waves is a visually breathtaking film about the power of the sea. Capturing the Atlantic Ocean in various moods as it crashes against the Irish coasts, the film is a hymn to the relentless power and endless beauty of this elemental force of nature. With coastal scenes harking back to the majesty of Flaherty’s Man of Aran (1934), Carey offers a unique sea-centred depiction of the islands as his painterly cinematography offers mesmerising images of roiling seas, waves crashing against the Aran rocks, sunsets and a golden full moon. John Taylor, friend and colleague of Carey, had originally worked on Man of Aran and filmed some of the additional photography in Waves. This film is part of The Patrick Carey Collection.