Documentary

Waves

11th October 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

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 […]

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Documentary

Oisín

11th October 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

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 […]

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Documentary

Mists of Time

11th October 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

Mists of Time is a poetic, visual portrait of the mythology surrounding Ireland’s megalithic tombs and standing stones. The monumental dolmen and passage graves of Ireland, once burial grounds from the Late Stone Age, are depicted alongside tales of the pagan Halloween festival, Samhain. Dramatic cinematography depicting sunsets and tombs at the Burren, Country Clare, […]

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Irish Culture

St. Patrick’s Country

5th June 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

The story of the Irish patron Saint, Patrick is explored through footage of his adopted homeland in picturesque Northern Ireland. This 1935 film from the Pathe Pictorial cinemagazine series depicts the village of Raholp, Co. Down, where St. Patrick grew up. The narrator tells how very little has changed in the sleepy village since the […]

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Irish Culture

The Causeway of the Giants

5th June 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

The majestic Giant’s Causeway, Co. Antrim, takes centre stage in this film from the Pathétone Weekly cinemagazine from 1935. A man clambers on some of the 37,000 basalt rock columns as a narrator describes the location as one of the ‘wonders of the world’. Most of the rocks are hexagonal in shape but there is […]

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Featured Home

Legend of the Lough

5th June 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

This short travelogue, part of the Pathetone Weekly cinemagazine, features the scenic landscapes of Glendalough, Co. Wicklow. Stunning footage of the ‘earthly paradise’ includes the upper and lower lakes, the majestic round tower, St. Kevin’s Church, and a ruined monastery. The narrator tells the story of St. Kevin – an Irish saint who lived very […]

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Irish Culture

Ennis

5th June 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

A study of the sleepy village of Ennis, Co. Clare, in the 1940s and how Shannon Airport affected daily life in the locality. While Pathé’s lens focuses on primitive thatched cottages, a narrator describes how Ennis ‘clings to the old ways of life’. A young boy fills a bucket from a street pump and the […]

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History

A Bygone Craft

4th June 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

This 1931 newsreel depicts Irish men making a coracle, a hide-covered boat used for salmon fishing. The boat-making process is demonstrated to camera, from creating a base with twigs, to weaving the structure and covering it in animal hide for waterproofing. Men then push the coracle out onto the River Boyne and lay fishing nets. […]

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Documentary

Wonderful Western Islanders

4th June 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

This short documentary depicts the lives of the inhabitants of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway in 1924. This short film, made about ten years before Flaherty’s epic Man of Aran, is probably the earliest surviving film of the islands. It presents a multi-faceted portrait of island life showing locals going about their […]

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History

Irish Co-Operative Gathers Peat

4th June 2019

IFI Archive Player Admin

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. ‘Rathangan’ is inscribed on the side of the barge and a man waves […]

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Amateur

The Magic Man

10th July 2018

IFI Archive Player Admin

Winner of the World Amateur Film of the Year, The Magic Man stars Rowel Friers (Artist and Political Cartoonist) as Mesmero, a magician who tours with his wife around remote villages with their magic and mind-reading act. When three local thugs convince themselves that the magic man will reveal their crimes to the police, they […]

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Newsreels

Guerrilla Warfare in Ireland

28th March 2018

IFI Archive Player Admin

This newsreel shows several rebels holding people at gunpoint in a muddy country road. Hostages sitting in the back of a truck are handed drinks while some are blindfolded. However many say this is more of a propaganda film made by the British.

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