Irish Culture

Gearrscannáin

Yu Ming is Ainm Dom

22nd August 2016

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Tired of his dead-end supermarket job, Yu Ming (Daniel Wu) decides to learn Irish and leave his home country of China for a new life overseas. With a simple spin of a globe he decides that Ireland will be his new home. When he researches Irish culture and learns that Gaelic is the country’s official […]

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Entertainment

Clare Sa Spéir

22nd August 2016

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A neglected and overworked housewife reaches her record-breaking point.  Attempting to break a world record, mother and wife Clare is determined to live in a tree for 32 days. In her absence, her reluctant husband is forced to take on the heavy burden of her domestic duties. Meanwhile, despite the obstacles of torrential rain, loneliness […]

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Gearrscannáin

Voyage to Recovery (Turas Téarnaimh)

22nd August 2016

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A young man (Joe Lynch) contracts tuberculosis to the dismay of his wife (Joan O’Hara) and to the shame of her aunt (Marie Keane). He recovers following a long spell convalescing in a tuberculosis sanatorium. A public information film infused with tension and humour and directed by actor/playwright Gerard Healy, this dramatized film looks at […]

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Entertainment

SAFE CYCLING

22nd August 2016

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Cycling through a city can be a stressful experience. This public information film was produced by the National Film Institute (now IFI) for the Department of Local Government. The film made by filmmaker (later archivist) Liam Ó Laoghaire (aka O’Leary) advises on the best cycling practice around busy Dublin streets. This public safety film from […]

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Documentary

The Silent Art

22nd August 2016

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This documentary, marking the directorial debut of Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Louis Marcus, is a luminous portrait of renowned Cork sculptor, Seamus Murphy (RHA). This first film-making endeavour by Louis Marcus serves as an invaluable record of his friend, sculptor Seamus Murphy (affectionately known as Stone Mad), and his work in his studio in Blackpool, Cork, […]

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Christmas Crackers

Moonmen

22nd August 2016

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Made by renowned and prolific director of dramas and documentaries, Kieran Hickey, this film shows members of the Half Moon Swimming Club braving the grim winter seas at Dublin’s South Wall in the winter of 1964/65. This was Hickey’s first film and provides the viewer an opportunity to eavesdrop on a moment in time. It […]

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History

Faithful Departed

22nd August 2016

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This short documentary draws on the photographs of Robert French from the William Lawrence Collection held in the National Library. The photos illustrate the Dublin of 1904 which served as a backdrop to James Joyce’s Ulysses. Directed in 1968 by renowned drama and documentary maker Kieran Hickey, the film traces Joyce’s childhood and adolescence, his […]

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1930s-1960s

Clubs Are Trumps

22nd August 2016

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This short film was made to promote the activities of the Our Lady of Good Counsel Boys Club in Thomas Street, Dublin. In the 1950s Father McGrath, a Dublin-based Augustinian Priest, ran this social club in a working class area of Dublin’s inner-city. He decided that the production of a short film outlining the activities […]

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Documentary

Once Upon a Tram

22nd August 2016

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Take a nostalgic trip along the beautiful Dublin coast, escaping the hustle and bustle of the city while enjoying the clatter and clang of the old Howth tram. This gentle film, directed by John Sarsfield and James Maguire and narrated by Cyril Cusack, records one of the last journeys of the Howth Tram, as it […]

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Entertainment

Jack of All Maids

22nd August 2016

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Renowned Abbey actor Jack MacGowran investigates Irish courtship rituals from a male perspective in this slice of 1952. A series of humorous vignettes showcase the talents of this extraordinary character actor, best known for his theatre work with Samuel Beckett and his film work including a role in the classic horror movie, The Exorcist. MacGowran […]

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Entertainment

Clerys Advert 1932

22nd August 2016

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Take a step back in time and experience what it was like to shop inside Clerys of O’Connell Street in Dublin in the early 1930s. This charming advertisement was shot in 1932, just 10 years after the rebuilding of Clerys, which had been destroyed in the 1916 rising. With a bird’s eye view of the […]

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Advertisement

Telecom Éireann: Anti-Vandalism

22nd August 2016

IFI Archive Player Admin

Back in the 1980s, long before smart phones were dreamt of and when many houses didn’t have a landline, phone boxes containing payphones were a feature of the rural and urban landscape. In this public information film a youth is in the act of vandalizing a payphone before he is confronted by a gang of […]

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