Projecting the past: Historical documentary in Ireland

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 335-350

  O'Brien, Harvey ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

^b NONE   (Ireland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149639641     PISSN: 01439685     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713669726     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. FSL Lyons Ireland Since the Famine 2nd edn (London, 1973) p. 664
2. To this day, Gael-Linn has not released the film in an English-language version, though a translation of the script of Mise Éire exists and portions of the film and its script were used in a shorter compilation film intended mostly for export, Irish Rising 1916 (George Morrison, 1966). Saoirse? was subtitled for broadcast by TnaG in 1997, but, according to Gael-Linn, this was entirely TnaG's decision. The official 1997 video issue of Saoirse? was not subtitled
3. These actualities were derived from contemporary footage of the events of the period as filmed by the likes of Pathé, Gaumont and Irish Events newsreels. Further information on these services may be found in Kevin Rockett et al., Cinema and Ireland (London, 1988)
4. Fuller accounts of the role and influence of Seán Ó Riada in Irish music may be found in Harris and Freyer eds, The Achievement of Seán Ó Riada (Dublin, 1981)
5. and in Harry White, The Keeper's Recital (Cork, 1998)
6. Among them Economic Development (1958)
7. and The Programme for Economic Expansion (1958)
8. There is some historical dispute about the actual nature of public sympathy for the rebels. The traditional reading, such as that advanced by Lyons (1973) has been that the general public did not approve of the rebellion, but the courts martial and executions turned the tide of support in their favour. J.J. Lee Ireland 1912-1985: politics and society (Cambridge, 1989) has argued that the exact mood of the public is impossible to decipher given the blanket of press silence around the Rising and the difficulty of finding eyewitness accounts of public feeling. What is clear is that Mise Éire signals that the executions were at the crest of a wave of public outrage, signifying the support for insurrection it suggests is an intrinsic part of the Irish consciousness
9. See J.J. Lee, Ireland 1912-1985
10. Scannán 4 (2) December 1959, p.7
11. In Irish Cinema Quarterly, Winter (1948), p. 23
12. In Irish Film Quarterly: Bulletin of the National Film Institute, March 1957, p. 10
13. Shawn Rosenheim, interrogating history, in Vivian Sobchack, ed., The Persistence of History (London, 1996)
14. See Morrison, The making of Mise Éire, The Irish Times 28 December 1979
15. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein; USSR, 1925) was not shown in Ireland until the Dublin Little Theatre Guild screened a print in 1936 to a limited audience. Afterwards, the foundation of the Irish Film Society increased the number of specialist foreign films in the country, but not to the extent that large audiences would be familiar with them. If it took that long for Eisenstein to reach the Irish, what chance could there have been for Shub, who is a neglected figure even in world cinema history?
16. (See Liam O'Leary, Cinema Ireland 1896-1950 (Dublin, 1990), p. 28
17. For further discussion of censorship in Ireland see Kevin Rockett et al., Cinema and Ireland
18. and Ciaran Carty, Confessions of a Sewer Rat Dublin, 1995)
19. Much of the material came from foreign archives. See Morrison, The making of Mise Éire
20. Harris, Freyer, eds, The Achievement of Seán O Riada (Dublin, 1981)
21. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, Annette Lavens, trans. (London, 1973) p. 156
22. For a discussion of these television series see John Pym, Ireland - Two nations, in Alan Rosenthal, ed., New Challenges for Documentary (Bevkelen 1988)
23. Though this same concept of de Valera/Lemass continuity was employed as a critique by Peter Lennon in Rocky Road to Dublin (1968)
24. Bunreacht na hÉireann/Constitution of Ireland, Government Publications Office, Dublin
25. RTÉ Guide, 10 April 1998, p. 14